Oral Answers to Questions

FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

The Secretary of State was asked—

Drugs Trade

Betty Williams: What role the United Kingdom is playing in combating the international drugs trade.

Denis MacShane: I want to convey to the House my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary's apologies for the fact that he is not here today. He is attending the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Foreign Ministers meeting in Reykjavik, a long-standing commitment of which I understand he informed you, Mr. Speaker.
	On my hon. Friend's question, it is a key, if unsung, aspect of Foreign and Commonwealth Office work to cut off, disrupt and delay the flow of heroin and cocaine to the United Kingdom. She will be aware that more than 90 per cent. of the heroin reaching the UK originates from the opium poppy grown in Afghanistan. I should like to inform the House that the Interim Administration in Kabul today announced the eradication of 16,000 hectares of opium poppies, which is about half the size of the New Forest, with a street value in Britain of approximately £5 billion. The United Kingdom has taken the lead with the Interim Administration in that task, and work to eradicate opium poppies continues as I speak. I congratulate the Interim Administration on the progress that they have made so far. The details of the eradication programme, maps and a video of what has been done will be placed in the Library of the House.

Betty Williams: I thank my hon. Friend for that answer, especially the excellent news from Afghanistan. Does he agree that we have a rare opportunity to address the problems that led to the drugs trade flourishing in Afghanistan in the first place? Does he also agree that poverty, law enforcement and education are crucial considerations in achieving that? What will our Government do to address them?

Denis MacShane: My hon. Friend knows about the investment made in Afghanistan by the Foreign Office, the Department for International Development and the Ministry of Defence. The very good news about the opium poppy eradication programme shows that farmers are ready to turn away from opium poppy production and from drug barons and drug traffickers, to build new lives for themselves and their families, with the help of further investment. That is the next stage of the vital campaign to turn Afghanistan into a normally functioning, albeit poor, state.

Graham Brady: The Minister spoke about the welcome reduction in poppy production in Afghanistan. What has been the effect of that on the streets in the United Kingdom? Has there been a reduction in the supply of heroin? Has it had an effect on the origin of heroin coming to the UK? What has happened to the price of heroin on the streets?

Denis MacShane: I think that those are matters for my right hon. and hon. Friends in the Home Office. The Foreign Office is responsible for what happens outside these shores; we are not yet responsible for what happens within the UK.

Jon Owen Jones: In respect of that answer, surely the point of having a policy is to have an effect, which in this case is to reduce the amount of drugs taken in this country. Will the Government and the Minister consider the fact that attempts to affect the supply of drugs have proven singularly ineffective with regard to the amount of drugs being taken? Indeed, this country has the worst heroin record in western Europe. On the other hand, if we affect the demand side by prescribing heroin, we will destroy the market and make many people much happier and much safer. It may not be in the Minister's remit to do that, but it is extremely important that he considers it.

Denis MacShane: As the father of four school-age children, I worry about those problems. I listened to the debate on the "Today" programme this morning with interest and welcome the initiatives taken by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and, indeed, my hon. Friend to raise many of the issues. My hon. Friend is right that demand has to be tackled, but at the same time let us disrupt, delay and cut off supply where we can. We are dealing with organised networks of crime, and it is not just drugs that are involved. It is right that the Foreign Office works hard overseas to interdict those criminal networks.

Alan Duncan: I think that hon. Members on both sides of the House welcome any step that is taken to bring about crop substitution in Afghanistan. However, looking elsewhere on the globe, will the Minister comment on the policing of ships and planes departing the Caribbean that might be involved in the transport of drugs? Newspapers have reported a significant increase in drugs trafficking by air, and we are also informed that the Atlantic patrol task ship, usually positioned in the Caribbean sea, will concentrate far more on hurricane relief than on working with the United States, French and Dutch navies to counter drug movements. What are the facts behind the deployment of that ship?

Denis MacShane: As the hon. Gentleman is aware, there is concern, which is being taken very seriously by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, about the air transport of so-called drugs mules into this country. I have not been out to sea on my visits to Latin America, but I have talked to our people there about the high level of co-operation between the naval and other elements of Her Majesty's forces and their partners in Latin America. Given the tremendous damage that hurricanes cause in central America and the Caribbean, if one of our ships is on hurricane relief duty, I welcome that. I am happy to write to the hon. Gentleman, if he so desires, with a detailed answer to his question.

Jim Cousins: No one here would want to undermine the heroic work being done by the Interim Administration in Afghanistan in extraordinarily difficult circumstances, but my hon. Friend will recognise that the amount of the poppy harvest that has been grubbed out under the eradication programme is only a small proportion of the total. What additional efforts are being made to assist the countries that border Afghanistan, such as Iran, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, through which trafficking routes pass, to break the links in the international drugs trade?

Denis MacShane: My hon. Friend draws attention to important points. The amount that has been eradicated is a substantial part of this year's crop, and the programme is not yet over, so that good work will continue. We have intense discussions with the neighbouring countries. Certainly, I know of work in the Balkans, one of the trafficking routes, where officials from the Foreign Office and other Departments are in place seeking to disrupt, delay or cut off that route and reduce the growth of the criminal networks that cause so much damage through drugs and other activities.

John Wilkinson: Speaking of the criminal networks, the Minister will be all too well aware that FARC, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, and the ELN, the National Liberation Army, both systematically exploit the drugs trade to gain weapons and resources to prosecute their murderous war against their own people. Can the Government, with their European Union partners, proscribe those organisations in the United Kingdom, so that at the very least they do not have the incentive to continue their activities in this country?

Denis MacShane: The hon. Gentleman's knowledge of south America is appreciated in the House, and I associate myself with his definition and description of the two organisations that he mentioned. I would add to those the paramilitary AUC, a third group that causes great harm in Colombia and is linked to the drugs business. It is of course for the Home Office to decide which organisations are proscribed, but I believe that FARC is not an organisation that we can treat other than in terms of its links to drugs criminality and its use of terrorist tactics in Colombia.

Extremism (Europe)

Michael Weir: What recent discussions have taken place between his Department and EU partners regarding right-wing extremist political parties in Europe.

Peter Hain: The European Union rose out of the ashes of a war fought against racism and extreme nationalism, and today Europe must fight extremism and racism with a five-point plan. First, the EU must be the world's biggest job creation factory, with economic reform to create full employment by the end of the decade. Secondly, the mission of the convention on the future of Europe must be to kill off the far right by bridging the gap between Europe's leaders and its citizens. Thirdly, by expanding the membership of the EU eastward we can reunite Europe's citizens and fight the forces seeking to divide us. Fourthly, Europe must be the toughest crime-fighting body in the world. Fifthly, we need a European asylum policy to stop human trafficking by criminal gangs.

Michael Weir: I thank the Minister for that full answer. I accept the need for relations with other EU Governments, but does the right hon. Gentleman think that it is appropriate for the UK Government to pursue their much-vaunted special relationship with Mr. Berlusconi, whose neo-fascist party is in a governing coalition, especially given the united but short-lived EU action against Austria? Does not that inconsistency in the EU send out the wrong signals about the need for all parties to unite against racism and xenophobia throughout Europe?

Peter Hain: The hon. Gentleman knows all about nationalism. The Prime Minister of Italy is an elected Prime Minister and Italy is an important member of the European Union. Our Prime Minister and Government would be failing in their responsibility if they did not establish a good relationship with that Government and that Prime Minister.

Peter Pike: While I accept the five points to which my right hon. Friend referred—we certainly do not want right-wing and racist extremists elected anywhere in Europe, including this country—does he agree that we need to look not only at why people on the right vote for those parties but why people on the disenchanted left are sometimes attracted to do so? We should look at the reasons for that and tackle the core problems that sometimes cause people to vote in that extreme and unacceptable way.

Peter Hain: If my hon. Friend is saying that there is wider disenchantment with conventional politics across Europe, I agree; the five-point plan is designed to address that. We need to tackle people's sense of insecurity. It is disturbing that Le Pen, who is a racist and an anti-Semite, has strong support around the borders of France. There is paranoia that he fed on a fear of outsiders. We need to take account of that, and the five-point plan is designed to do so.

Julian Lewis: Does the Minister agree that as deplorable as the result was in which the British National party won three council seats in this country, there is no comparison between the minuscule support for fascists here and the significant and growing support for fascists and neo-fascist parties on the continent?
	While not in any way wishing to write off the prospect of democracy proving triumphant on the continent in the long run, will the Minister at least acknowledge that that is one reason why some of us, at least in the Opposition, have grave doubts about moves towards political unification with the continent when its political system is much more likely to elect extremists than ours?

Peter Hain: I really think that that shows appalling complacency. We have a serious problem with racism in Britain, particularly in certain parts of the country, and with the far right, including the neo-Nazis and the BNP. We must work with our European colleagues across Europe; I think that the hon. Gentleman should be a little more charitable about many of our European partners who have few or no race problems in their communities. We need to learn from each other and tackle the problem together, rather than allow the hon. Gentleman to indulge in his usual point scoring against the European Union.

Meg Munn: I, too, welcome the plan set out by the Minister. However, does he believe that it is important to have a stronger connection between the people of Europe and the EU institutions to dispel the scaremongering of right-wing parties?

Peter Hain: I very much agree with my hon. Friend, which is precisely why the Government and I, as the Government's representative on the convention on the future of Europe, are seeking a set of reforms in Europe to ensure that European leaders are much more accountable to European citizens and that the Council of Ministers provides a strategic political direction on tackling things such as rising crime, threats to security and unemployment. A body composed of Ministers from elected Governments who are accountable to their citizens should drive Europe's strategic direction; the convention's reform objectives have that aim as their priority.

David Chidgey: The Minister has a deserved reputation as an active campaigner in the past against discrimination, which we all applaud, but how does he square that with reaction to his recent remarks on isolationism in certain Muslim communities? Does he not agree that the real challenge for him and his colleagues is confronting illiberalism, bigotry and ignorance wherever they occur, in whatever community of whatever faith?

Peter Hain: Of course I agree, but I am sure that the hon. Gentleman does not want to give me any lessons in fighting racism. The Government and the Labour party have encouraged the appointment of Muslims in all walks of life—we have more councillors in the Labour party from the Muslim faith than ever before and more than any other party; we are proud to have Muslim Members of Parliament and to have helped to appoint Muslims to the House of Lords. However, there is a tiny minority of isolationists in the Muslim community, just as there are tiny minorities of fundamentalists and fanatics in all religions, including, for example, in Northern Ireland. We stand four square against that to build a tolerant anti-racist society.

Afghanistan (World Service)

Ross Cranston: What assessment he has made of the recent impact of the work of the BBC World Service in Afghanistan.

Michael Moore: What assessment he has made of the value of the BBC World Service's Arabic radio and online services.

Denis MacShane: First, I pay tribute to the former managing director of the World Service of the BBC, Mr. Austen Kark, who died in the Potters Bar tragedy. He was an outstanding servant of that outstanding and uniquely British institution.
	The BBC World Service has played a key role in the middle east and Afghanistan since 11 September, especially through its radio and online services in local languages. The new relay station in Oman, which will come into operation later this year, will improve reception for some 50 million people in the region.

Ross Cranston: I congratulate those on the Front Bench on the additional funding that they have made available for the World Service since the events of 11 September. However, the online service that my hon. Friend mentioned and others towards which the World Service is moving—FM, for example—are costly. Will my hon. Friend add my name, as an unreserved supporter of that great public institution, to the list that he can exhibit to the Chancellor in the current discussions on the next spending round?

Denis MacShane: My hon. Friend's name will follow mine, together with the names of all 659 Members of the House, I expect.

Michael Moore: The Minister is right to praise the World Service. Since 11 September, its Arabic service has moved to 24-hours-a-day operation and the number of online users of its Arabic service has increased by a million. The American Government have recognised the importance of broadcasting in the region, with the announcement of an extra $30 million for the Voice of America service. Given the fraught situation in the middle east and the need for a fair and impartial broadcaster for the region, will the Minister add my name to the list and make sure that the Foreign Secretary and the entire Foreign and Commonwealth Office support the bid for the modest increase that the BBC World Service needs in the next comprehensive spending review?

Denis MacShane: I am glad to say that this Government have provided an immodest increase for the World Service—an extra £100 million between 1999 and 2004, and an extra £64 million in the present spending period. It is not just in the Arab regions that the World Service counts; listenership has doubled in the United States. On visits to Washington, I am always surprised at the fact that leaders of the State Department and other US Government Departments turn to the BBC World Service, the Financial Times and The Economist to get their news and views. The special relationship exists through the media, at least.

Donald Anderson: It is right to pay a well-deserved tribute to the World Service in general, and to point out, for example, that it won the top honours at the recent Sony radio awards, and that Mr. Baqer Moin, the head of the Persian and Pashto service, won the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association award. I hope that my hon. Friend will not only add his name to the list, but ensure that the Chancellor's signature is added.

Denis MacShane: My right hon. Friend has, I suspect, far more influence with our Chancellor of the Exchequer than I am likely to have.

Menzies Campbell: Let the record speak for itself.
	Does the Minister agree that it is essential in present circumstances to recognise the value of the World Service, and in particular its broadcasts in Arabic and other languages throughout the whole of the middle east? Is not the World Service uniquely able to give an objective and impartial analysis of current events in the middle east—for example, the decision at the weekend of the Likud party to reject the idea of a Palestinian state, which many feel would unduly complicate the prospects of achieving a peaceful settlement in the middle east?

Denis MacShane: The Arabic radio service of the BBC has about 10 million listeners and BBC Arabic Online receives almost 9 million page impressions a month. There is FM rebroadcasting in Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Jordan and Sudan. I am sure that most key leaders in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem also either listen to or log on to the BBC World Service, which gives a view of what is happening around the world that is not only unique, but above all impartial and not propagandistic in any way.

Tam Dalyell: May I add my congratulations to Baqer Moin, head of the Persian and Pashto services? If money is available for the proposed bombing of Iraq, could one tenth of 1 per cent. of that amount be found for the World Service?

Denis MacShane: My hon. Friend knows more than I do, but to my knowledge there is no plan to bomb Baghdad or Iraq. As I said, the Government have put more money into the World Service than it has ever received from any Government in the 60-odd years of its wonderful existence.

Michael Ancram: May I associate myself with the tribute paid by the Minister to Mr. Austen Kark, who lost his life last Friday at Potters Bar?
	Given the vital role of the World Service's Arabic radio service in promoting wider understanding of our international objectives—as we have just heard, that is especially important in the context of the coalition against terrorism and the regional threat posed by the development of weapons of mass destruction—does not the Minister agree that the message conveyed by the World Service should be consistent? In relation to potential future action against Iraq, which he just mentioned, will he tell us what the message is? Is it the Prime Minister's reported assertion last week that Britain will not back United States military action against Iraq unless such action is also backed by the Security Council of the United Nations, or the earlier assertion by the Secretary of State for Defence that
	"we would be perfectly entitled to use force without the support of a UN Security Council resolution"?
	Which is the true position of the Government and the one that they would like the World Service to convey?

Denis MacShane: I worked briefly at the World Service in a previous incarnation, and I must say that the Government never told it what to report. When the Government's position is clear, no doubt the World Service will report it accurately. As the right hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well, the Prime Minister and other Ministers have made it clear that actions with regard to Iraq or anywhere else will take place within the context of international law. That is well known and understood, and it will be reported by the World Service.

Venezuela

David Borrow: If he will make a statement on the situation in Venezuela.

Denis MacShane: The Government deplored the removal of President Chavez from office following the strike organised by the CTV trade union confederation and the employers federation against him and we welcome the return of constitutional democracy in Venezuela.

David Borrow: I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. He will be aware that, under President Chavez, Venezuela has played a much more active role in OPEC. Will he explain what discussions have taken place between the British and Venezuelan Governments about the importance of oil price stability and tell us whether those discussions have been successful?

Denis MacShane: When I was in Venezuela, I had a long conversation with President Chavez on that very subject. The assurance that he gave me is important and is worth putting on the record not only in this country, but internationally. He assured me that he would play a full part in guaranteeing that OPEC price stability would be maintained—when I spoke to him, there was a threat that Saddam Hussein would cut off oil production—and that there would be no threat to oil supplies and no threat of a sudden rise in the price of oil. He said that he would telephone Mr. Ali Rodriguez of OPEC to convey that message immediately. I was very grateful for that assurance.

Derek Conway: Does the Minister accept that the all-party group on Venezuela, which I happen to chair, will be very grateful for and pleased with his comments? Will he tell the House whether President Chavez offered the British Government any of the proof that he claims to have showing that two United States military agents were involved in plotting the coup, recorded on video and in photographic evidence?

Denis MacShane: The answer is no. I am pleased that an all-party group of MPs will shortly visit Venezuela.
	I have seen no evidence at all to back up any of those allegations, which were not, to my knowledge, made directly by the President himself, but by a number of newspaper reporters. What is important is that as soon as his removal from office became public news, every Government in Latin America, many of whom are quite critical of him, said, as did the British Government, that only a return to democratic and constitutional law and politics would be accepted in Venezuela. That was the right approach by the Government, and we should sustain that position.

John Cryer: I welcome my hon. Friend's comments about the failure of the coup, although I do not remember his saying that at the time when the coup was happening. Will he take this opportunity not only to condemn the plotters and coup masters, but the United States Government for their failure both to condemn the coup when it was going on and to welcome the return of President Chavez?

Denis MacShane: I am responsible, in this area, for what this Government do. If my hon. Friend would care to turn to www.fco.gov.uk and look for my statement of Friday 12 April, he will see a condemnation of the coup and a demand that constitutional democracy be restored. As far as I know, other than Latin American Governments we were one of the only leading Governments to make such a statement at the time. That is the message for Latin America—democracy rules. Perhaps my hon. Friend could have a friendly talk with some of his trade union friends in Venezuela, who organised the strike that led to President Chavez's disappearance.

Crispin Blunt: Does the Minister think that it serves democracy when on the day after an elected President is removed from office he is described by a Foreign Office Minister as a ranting populist demagogue?

Denis MacShane: I am happy again to place on the record the fact that the Government condemned the coup and called for the return of constitutional democracy. Having been a Member of this House for eight years, I have had continually to listen to ranting populist demagogues on the Benches opposite, and I need no lessons from that quarter in how I describe people around the world.

NATO Enlargement (Baltic States)

Gordon Marsden: What recent discussions his Department has had with (a) Estonia, (b) Latvia and (c) Lithuania about the political aspects of proposed NATO enlargement.

Ben Bradshaw: We have had frequent discussions with all three Baltic states. We have made clear the importance that we attach to the political, as well as the military, responsibilities of NATO membership.

Gordon Marsden: I thank my hon. Friend for that reply. I recently visited Estonia and Latvia with the British Association for Central and Eastern Europe. Does my hon. Friend agree that, as I had the chance to see for myself, those countries have made great strides in reintegrating themselves into the new Europe?
	Given that the NATO meeting in Reykjavik today is considering the whole issue of enlargement and applications for enlargement, will the Department continue to stress to those Governments the importance of the political dimension in the responsibility of NATO membership? In particular, will it emphasise the need to reassure and to give equal access to citizenship for Russian minorities in the countries concerned, so that we are able to reassure those minorities that membership of NATO will be a force for stability and integration in their countries?

Ben Bradshaw: Of course. We are very pleased with the progress that the Baltic states have made in integrating and improving the human rights of their minorities, especially the Russian minority. It is particularly pleasing that Latvia is in the process of changing its electoral law to remove the language barrier that might have discriminated against its Russian minority. That shows one of the political benefits—not only for NATO, but for the countries concerned—in countries aspiring to and, eventually we hope, joining NATO.

Michael Ancram: If the three Baltic nations specified in the question are admitted to NATO—we would welcome that—will they join the genuinely transatlantic alliance that constitutes NATO now, or the European pillar of a defence community that was proposed two weeks ago by the chairman of the EU Military Committee, General Hagglund? Does the Minister agree with the general that
	"the new EU-NATO would also take part in long-term peacekeeping operations and humanitarian missions",
	while the US-NATO
	"would be responsible for . . . worldwide crisis management missions as well as rooting out terrorism at the source"?
	How can that divisive proposal be reconciled with the Foreign Secretary's words in Washington last week? He said:
	"NATO is the principal instrument for sustaining the means for European military collaboration with the US".

Ben Bradshaw: Those nations will join NATO, which is and will remain the cornerstone of our strategic defence. The right hon. Gentleman quoted Mr. Hagglund out of context. He was making the point, with which we agree, that the European Union is developing the capability to manage crises in its backyard, as the United States has pressed us to do for a long time.

Jane Griffiths: My hon. Friend knows that the Foreign Minister of Estonia will visit the United Kingdom next month. Will he discuss the matters that we are considering with that Minister? Will he join me in congratulating Estonia on its victory last year in the Eurovision song contest and its forthcoming hosting of the event?

Ben Bradshaw: I am happy to congratulate any country that enjoys a victory in that contest. [Interruption.] I am not sure whether it is a blessing.
	Of course the Foreign Minister of Estonia will be warmly welcomed. Estonia has made great strides towards democracy and probably leads all the Baltic countries in its preparedness for NATO accession.

Michael Ancram: The Minister cannot brush aside General Hagglund's remarks so easily. The general said:
	"It would be appropriate to build this community"—
	he meant a defence community—
	" . . . on two mutually supporting pillars: a European and a North American pillar."
	I understand that Javier Solana, the EU foreign affairs envoy, saw his speech in advance. Is not that yet another element in a creeping agenda to undermine NATO and create a separate European defence policy, decoupled from that of the United States? How can the remarks be reconciled with the Prime Minister's insistence in 1999 that the European defence project would reinforce, not oppose NATO? It is time that the Government came clean. Do they agree with the European view on defence or not?

Ben Bradshaw: It is time that the Opposition ended the infantile anti-Europeanism that drives their agenda. The right hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that there is no conflict or contradiction between the role of NATO, the cornerstone of our strategic defence, and the European security and defence policy, which will be responsible for Petersberg tasks.

EU Enlargement

Rosemary McKenna: What measures his Department is taking to help United Kingdom businesses prepare for EU enlargement.

Peter Hain: We are working hard with Trade Partners UK to help more than 15,000 British companies take advantage of the enormous opportunities in what will be the largest single market in the industrialised world. On 12 June we will brief British business journalists about them.

Rosemary McKenna: My right hon. Friend knows the importance of commercial assistance to UK companies that are trying to set up in the pre-accession countries if we are to be truly competitive and increase employment in the UK. He will know of the serious anxieties that have been expressed through our embassies and consuls about the available resources. What steps has he taken or can he take to improve matters?

Peter Hain: A third of our diplomats abroad are commercial officials, responsible for driving Britain's trade strategy and helping businesses. There are enormous opportunities in the countries that want to join the European Union. Ten are on target to do that and to complete their negotiations by the end of the year. That should be a wake-up call to all British business to go out and take advantage of those opportunities. Britain is perceived as a champion of European enlargement, the best friend of candidate countries. Our businesses would find an open door. They would be welcomed through it to great opportunities of which they could take advantage.

Nick Hawkins: Before EU enlargement proceeds, some unfinished business needs to be tackled about people in the EU who are currently disfranchised. The Minister realises that I am referring to people in Gibraltar who have repeatedly been promised the opportunity to vote in European elections. Despite the Government's—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The question is not about Gibraltar.

Andrew MacKinlay: Does the Minister recall that the last time I aggravated Ministers on the question of European Union enlargement, it was to ask why no Labour Secretary of State for Trade and Industry had visited the principal accession countries? Has the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry—as distinct from a junior Minister—visited Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic or any of the other accession countries? If not, why not, and when is she going? What is more, will he kick the backside of Britain's commerce and industry, particularly the financial sector, which have been unbelievably tardy in their approach to central Europe, and still believe that it consists of far away countries of which we know little? The Germans, French, Swedes and others are engaged in this process but we are not. The British Government have been tardy on this, and so have commerce and industry.

Peter Hain: I know that my hon. Friend is really on my side on this matter, and on other matters of Government policy. I acknowledge his interest in central Europe, and his long association with it. I have been to Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovenia and Cyprus—half the candidate countries—and my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary is due to visit many of them in the next few weeks. Every time we go, we assist British business, as do our officials who are in post in those countries all year round. Moreover, I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry will listen carefully to my hon. Friend's strictures.

Anne McIntosh: In preparing UK businesses for enlargement—which the Minister knows is an objective that the Conservatives prize—will he ensure that British businesses are not discriminated against? That applies particularly to British farmers, as our large farmers might be discriminated against in favour of smaller European farmers.

Peter Hain: One of our driving objectives in reforming Europe is to get a sensible agricultural policy, which we certainly do not have at present. The common agricultural policy needs radical reform, and enlargement will increase the pressure for that to happen. Indeed, I do not think that the CAP as it is structured will bear the weight of enlargement.

Democratic Republic of the Congo

Eric Joyce: What recent discussions he has had on the peace process in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Denis MacShane: My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary spoke to his French and Belgian counterparts about the peace process in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on 23 April and visited the region earlier this year.

Eric Joyce: Will my hon. Friend join me in commending the work of the Association of Western European Parliamentarians for Africa, of which my right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, East (Donald Anderson) was a founder member? The AWEPA works towards the development of parliamentary democracies in parts of Africa that do not have them—notably, at the moment, the DRC and the surrounding countries. The association receives limited funding from some European countries, but none from the United Kingdom. Would the Government consider extending modest financial support to its efforts?

Denis MacShane: I shall pass on that request to my noble Friend Baroness Amos, the Minister with responsibility for Africa. My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the need to build democratic and parliamentary links, but we should also note that sub-Saharan Africa now has largely democratic Governments—with the notable exception of Zimbabwe—and that is a step in the right direction.

Richard Spring: Does the Minister agree that the role of Zimbabwe in the DRC is simply helping to extend the conflict? Does he also agree that, unless President Mugabe withdraws his logistical and military influence, there is little chance of peace? What work are the British Government doing with the UN special representative to the DRC and with our friends in southern Africa to bring pressure to bear to stop this damaging involvement?

Denis MacShane: The simple answers to those questions are yes, yes and a lot. The work is exemplified by the visit of my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary to the region, and his constant contact with our European and other partners. Our commitment to NEPAD—the New Partnership for Africa's Development—means that, possibly for the first time in a generation, this Government are focusing on Africa in its totality. Restoring democracy to Zimbabwe is undoubtedly one of the big challenges that we all face.

Oona King: What is my hon. Friend's assessment of the UN Security Council's recent decision to deploy troops from Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda along the eastern border of the Congo? May I draw to his attention the fact that, if we had that same troops-to-land ratio in the Congo—where 2.5 million people have died in the last three years alone—we would be looking at 10 million UN peacekeepers? Although that is totally out of the question, will the British Government none the less ensure that there will be a viable force to end the bloodshed in that region?

Denis MacShane: My hon. Friend's personal commitment to and knowledge of the region are second to none in the House—and, I suspect, in the rest of SW1. She will know that the Congo is gripped by three major conflicting parties, all willing to commit themselves to using arms. What we are working for is a peace agreement. President Mbeki is in London today; he is one of those acting as facilitators in an attempt to bring the parties together.
	The peace agreement must be followed by effective deployment of troops, and, much more important, by economic investment enabling this tragic region to devote its heart and energies to a better material future for its people.

Indonesia

Martin Smyth: What recent steps have been taken to assist the Indonesian Government to protect their citizens against terrorism.

Ben Bradshaw: The British Government have taken a number of measures to help Indonesia address the threat of terrorism and intercommunal violence. They include high-level information-sharing and visits to Jakarta by a counter-terrorism expert, representatives of the Ministry of Defence and representatives of the police. We continue to urge the Indonesian Government to take firm action to limit the activities of extremists.

Martin Smyth: The Minister will know of the latest upsurge, which happened at the end of last month. Is it possible that the Indonesian Government will need further help from other countries dealing with international terrorism? Can he say whether Laskar Jihad has any links with al-Qaeda, and can he say what steps are being taken to help a Government in charge of a tremendous expanse of land but with few resources to deal with a problem that affects both Christians and moderate Muslims?

Ben Bradshaw: We have no evidence of links between Laskar Jihad and al-Qaeda. It is difficult to see some of the intercommunal problems in Indonesia in the context of the campaign against terrorism. I know that many hon. Members are very interested in this subject, as I receive many letters from them. I must tell them that there is not a monopoly of virtue on either side in places such as Sulawesi.
	There have been improvements recently: the signing of the Molino agreement has been helpful, and we believe that the Indonesian Government are serious about clamping down on intercommunal violence. There are signs that refugees are returning home. Nevertheless, we will of course consider what more the British Government can do to help reconciliation.

Mike Gapes: Will the Minister pay tribute to all who kept the flag flying for the liberation of part of Indonesia—the independent state of East Timor—and congratulate Xanana Gusmao on his election as President of that United Nations member state?

Ben Bradshaw: Indeed, and the British Government's role in securing Gusmao's safety when he was in exile in Jakarta should never be underestimated. This Sunday, God willing, I shall have the privilege of passing on my hon. Friend's congratulations to Gusmao in person when representing the British Government at the celebration of East Timorese independence.

Henry Bellingham: As the Minister knows, Indonesia is not the only country facing terrorist threats. Has he discovered any alliances, or any connection, between the terrorists in Indonesia and the Maoist guerrillas in Nepal, who now control 45 per cent. of that country? Representatives of the Nepalese Government were here recently, asking Her Majesty's Government for assistance. What assistance will the Government give?

Ben Bradshaw: We are already giving Nepal a great deal of assistance. The hon. Gentleman is right: the situation in Nepal is extremely grave. The Maoist terrorists, as I prefer to call them, have been exhibiting a savagery that is almost unprecedented.
	We will certainly consider extra ways of helping the fledgling democracy in Nepal to resist the insurgents. Immediately after Question Time I shall have a meeting with Nepal's Prime Minister, who has already met other leading figures in this country. As far as we are aware, there is no contact between any organisations in Indonesia and the Maoist insurgents in Nepal.

China

Ian Lucas: What indications he has received that China is prepared to engage with United Nations human rights mechanisms.

Alistair Carmichael: What representations he will make to the Government of China on their human rights record before the Olympic games.

Denis MacShane: At every meeting with Chinese Ministers and officials, my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary or I raise human rights issues, in which China's record leaves much—very much—to be desired.

Ian Lucas: Although trade with China is an important issue, will the Minister continue to impress on the Chinese authorities that China will never be fully accepted into the international community until it fully respects human rights and the UN's role in enforcing them? In particular, will he point out that the Chinese people will not be accepted as people with whom we wish to do business until they respect the rights of the people of Tibet?

Denis MacShane: My hon. Friend is right, but what we ask of the Chinese Government is no different from what we ask of every other Government: simply to respect international laws and the conventions that the Chinese Government themselves signed up to. That demand remains on the table, and it will be pressed by Ministers of this Government.

Alistair Carmichael: Is the Minister aware that Amnesty International estimates that some 240 Falun Gong practitioners have died in custody in China since January last year? Is he also aware that, according to a recent report, the Chinese Government have set up a special taskforce, known as the "610 Office", which is tasked with running a systematic and apparently officially sanctioned campaign against Falun Gong practitioners? Will the Government take advantage of increased world attention on China in the run-up to the 2008 Olympic games, in Beijing, to bring increased pressure to bear? Will they also make it clear that they will take a lead by encouraging athletes and sportsmen and women not to attend those games unless the situation improves markedly?

Denis MacShane: The hon. Gentleman is right to draw attention to the brutal treatment inflicted on Falun Gong practitioners, and such issues are raised regularly with Chinese officials. He is wrong, however, to start demanding now a boycott of the Beijing Olympic games. Other Olympic games and World cups that have taken place in Asia in the past 40 years have without exception contributed to an opening up of, and a relaxation of, previously authoritarian or closed regimes. I am confident—although it is a hope rather than a guarantee—that the same movement will take place in China in the next few years.

Stephen McCabe: When the Minister is next able to raise the question of Falun Gong with the Chinese authorities, will he make particular mention of their refusal to renew the passports of Chinese citizens temporarily resident in this country? That is not only a denial of human rights but restricts the ability to travel of, for example, scientists on temporary assignments in such countries.

Denis MacShane: My hon. Friend makes a good point. Like the right to speak and to organise, the right to travel is a fundamental human freedom that should be available to every Chinese citizen, just as we insist that such freedoms be available to every citizen throughout the world.

James Gray: One important issue discussed during yesterday's No. 10 summit with the Nepalese Prime Minister will have been the threat to human rights in Nepal, particularly from the Maoist guerrillas to whom reference was made a moment ago. Cherie Booth, QC, was recently appointed by the Nepalese to fight a human rights action against the British Government. Will the Minister undertake that she did not meet—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman should remember that the question concerns China, not Nepal.

Michael Fabricant: I have got a Chinese one.

Mr. Speaker: Perhaps I shall call Michael Fabricant, then.

Michael Fabricant: The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) is right to raise the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners, but as the Minister will know, the small Christian community, the even smaller Jewish community and the gay community in China are also persecuted.
	As China has now become a part of the World Trade Organisation, can we bring any pressure to bear through the WTO to ensure that human rights are maintained in China?

Denis MacShane: Again, Chinese treatment of minorities and gay Chinese is to be deplored, but I am not sure that the World Trade Organisation is the right place to bring those issues to the world's attention. The hon. Gentleman said that he has a Chinese one. I am not sure what the one is, but perhaps one day he will wear pigtails in the Chamber. I am sure that he himself can raise those matters as he wishes to.

Michael Connarty: Does my hon. Friend accept that we all want to see China integrated into the practices of the western and civilised world in its trade and its behaviour towards its citizens? As a member of the all-party China group, I want to see China take on board more strongly the admonitions of my hon. Friend and his colleagues. Has he attempted to raise with the Chinese the fear that they are going backwards and that some of the behaviour of which they have been accused on mainland China has now spread to Hong Kong, which was a British protectorate for 100 years? It is not acceptable to this Government or to the rest of the world that the Chinese should deny people in Hong Kong the right to peaceful demonstration as they have previously denied it to their citizens on the mainland. Will my hon. Friend raise that point with the Chinese Government in the near future?

Denis MacShane: My hon. Friend and other right hon. and hon. Members contribute to the understanding between Britain and China through the all-party China group, which does excellent work. I recently met Miss Emily Lau, the Hong Kong legislative council member, to discuss those issues and the British position is clear. The basic law—the joint declaration that protects human and civic rights in Hong Kong—must be respected. I have also appreciated the talks that I have had with human rights non-governmental organisations, activists and campaigners, and journalists, who are able to maintain a level of freedom in Hong Kong as part of China that sends some good signals for the future. Things should be better and we shall keep pressing for them to improve.

Nicaragua

Julie Morgan: If he will make a statement on relations with Nicaragua.

Denis MacShane: The United Kingdom enjoys good relations with Nicaragua. I briefly met President Bolanos at the inauguration of Costa Rica's new President last week and I look forward to meeting him at the summit of EU, Latin American and Caribbean states in Madrid this Thursday and Friday. We particularly welcome the headway he is making on tackling corruption.

Julie Morgan: I thank my hon. Friend for that reply. What advice is given to British citizens who plan to buy islands off the Atlantic coast of Nicaragua? Is he aware of the Channel 4 documentary, "No Going Back", which featured a family in that position? Is he also aware of the 1987 constitution and its provision for the autonomous coast of Nicaragua that gives the rights to those islands and that land to the indigenous people of Nicaragua?

Denis MacShane: I have never fully understood the attraction of buying one's own island, but undoubtedly some people have that ambition. I have been informed about the Channel 4 documentary and the tragic circumstances of the family in question, and the great help that our ambassador and staff there provided to them. I would advise anybody anywhere in the world to have the closest regard to local property laws and, especially in central and Latin America, the rights of indigenous people, whose needs and priorities are being raised and discussed throughout the region. I would have thought that we have plenty of pretty coastline and even the odd island off the British Isles that might be bought first.

Nicholas Soames: While the whole House will be much gratified to learn of the excellent relations between the Government and Nicaragua, will the Minister tell the House the aims and objectives of the Government's policy towards Nicaragua?

Denis MacShane: The hon. Gentleman is an island unto himself. His new-found interest in Nicaragua is much appreciated. The key—which I discussed last week with our ambassador to Nicaragua—is to root out corruption inherited from the Sandinista Administration and their successor. I congratulate the Bolanos Government on the headway that they are making in combating corruption, and I am glad that the hon. Gentleman is as keen on rooting out corruption as I am.

Points of Order

Peter Luff: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In making this point of order, I wish to make it clear that no blame or discredit should attach to Lord Rooker, who has made strenuous and characteristically courteous efforts to ensure that the House is properly informed on this matter. However, a written question due for answer today asks the Home Secretary when he will announce the sites about which he will seek planning permission for accommodation centres. It transpires that the answer to that question appeared in the Independent on Sunday at the weekend. The newspaper correctly identified the three sites in question, which include Throckmorton in my constituency. The Home Office gave an assurance yesterday that the report was sheer speculation.
	Do you agree, Mr. Speaker, that that is a gross discourtesy to the House? The matter is of huge importance to my constituents and to the asylum seekers who will be so inappropriately housed in accommodation centres. Should not the matter have been handled more properly? Given that there has been a leak from the Home Office, do you have any power to ask the Home Secretary to conduct a leak inquiry?

Mr. Speaker: I understand that the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Wallasey (Angela Eagle), made an announcement in Standing Committee E this morning, and that the hon. Gentleman was also contacted by a Home Office Minister beforehand. No doubt Ministers are as concerned as the hon. Gentleman over the leak. I am sure that they will take note of the comments that he has made on the matter.

Michael Spicer: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. You have kindly given the House a judgment on the matter of the leak, but will you say something about the manner in which the matter has been brought before Parliament? When an announcement is slipped out as a parliamentary answer in the afternoon, hon. Members have no chance to ask questions about it. In this case, the Government have even supplied their own question and answer, but the question is different from the one that I wanted to ask. I was interested in the independence of the planning procedure. Can you, Mr. Speaker, give a judgment on that matter?

Mr. Speaker: It is up to the individual Minister to judge how to let the House know about such matters.

Menzies Campbell: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate that the Order Paper is not your exclusive responsibility, but it is clear that some of today's questions in Foreign Affairs questions were somewhat lacking in topicality. That is because they have to be put down a fortnight in advance, and circumstances in foreign affairs can change very quickly. I wonder, when you are next consulted about the contents of the Order Paper, whether you might give some regard to the circumstances in which it might be possible to question Foreign Office Ministers about issues that have become topical since the Order Paper was drawn up. Is it possible that questions of a more open nature than has become the custom might once again be in order?

Mr. Speaker: I understand that the Procedure Committee is looking at parliamentary questions at the moment. I advise the right hon. and learned Gentleman to take his complaint to that Committee. I do not have powers to change the order of questions that come before the House on any given day, including today.

Planning (Publication and Infrastructure)

Derek Wyatt: I beg to move,
	That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require applications for planning permission to be published at the time notice of the application is given; to require planning permission for new housing or business development to be conditional upon fulfilment of planning obligations relating to infrastructure; and for connected purposes.
	They say that an Englishman's home is his castle. I hope that they say that of women, the Scots, the Welsh and the Irish too. Since the second world war, our housing policy has been largely to build houses and/or—sadly—high-rise flats for our poorest people.
	The movement to build high-rise flats as a solution for our housing crisis came from the strong utopian—some say socialist—thinking led by the Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier. His experiment in Marseilles—Unité d'Habitation—became better known as a village on stilts. When United Kingdom architects, planners and developers borrowed from these experiments, they failed miserably but, alas, not before many of our inner cities—and some of our outer ones too—had decided that that type of housing was the cheapest means of providing rabbit hutches in the sky. I know of only one architect of public high-rise flats who was prepared to live in them. That probably says a lot about our architects.
	After the war, we seemed to forget the lessons of Saltaire, Port Sunlight, Bournville, New Earswick, Letchworth and Welwyn Garden City. I do not wish to upset certain hon. Members or their constituents, but of the new towns built since 1948, how many are we really proud of in terms of architecture, infrastructure and housing densities? Would we truly want to give grade 1 listed status to a Basildon, a Cumbernauld, a Milton Keynes or a Crawley as examples that can hold a light to our 19th century philanthropists who ultimately gave us the garden city movement? Thankfully, though, that is still a matter for debate.
	Housing, especially in the south-east, has become, along with public sector pay and the need for a truly 21st century infrastructure, the key to the quality of life for everyone. House prices make it essential that we look again at extending the London allowance into a south-east allowance, but that alone will not solve our severe housing shortage.
	I do not want this to be a Bill for the south-east—far from it. However, the way in which developers work in tandem with our unelected planning departments is a joy to behold. Developers can work with planners for two or three years without an elected councillor or the people whom it might affect knowing anything. The first part of the Bill would end the secrecy of developers and the relationship that they have with planning departments. It would make it law that when an architect, developer or whoever first contacted a planning department, whether by e-mail, letter or telephone, that department would have to put an advertisement in the local paper explaining the proposed development. It would also have to put that information on its website, inform all the elected politicians of the application, including borough and county councillors, Members of Parliament and Members of the European Parliament and inform all the relevant statutory bodies. The current system is undemocratic, open to abuse and unfair.
	The second part of the Bill goes to the heart of the problem, and I shall cite examples from my constituency, parts of which resemble a building site. When families moved into the village of Bapchild, they were told that there was a primary school less than 400 m away. They were not told that the primary school had no spare places. Consequently, those children have been fitted into the primary schools all over Sittingbourne, with some families having to drive nearly three miles across the town in the rush hour.
	On the outskirts of Milton—fast becoming a suburb of Sittingbourne—on the Meads estate, more than 500 new houses have been or are being built. I will resist commenting on the way in which developers such as Redrow Homes and David Wilson Homes have attempted to build these houses. Families were told that there was to be a new primary school built under section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. They were also told that there would be a new doctor's surgery on site, shops and even a village hall. They still might, if they cross their collective fingers, one day in the future actually see the shops and the play space, but I would not hold my breath. Families are now driving back to Gravesend or Maidstone to see their former general practitioners and there is no new primary school, so there is no planning gain. No wonder the developers love planning departments. They love them because the odds are stacked in their favour. This must stop.
	In another area of my constituency, the developer has been allowed to build and, at the same time, take down the woodland that shielded the new houses from the noise of one of the busiest highways in the county. The result is that not even triple glazing prevents the din. Worse still—because that development is almost in the countryside—is the fact that as my constituents sit in their gardens all they can hear is the drumming of cars and lorries on the concrete.
	The most insidious part of planning that goes unchecked relates to the number of houses that can be built on a site. My guess is that no developer who puts in for 350 houses actually builds 350 houses. Anecdotal evidence suggests that developers will try anything on. Their initial instruction may ask for 350 houses but by the time the development is finished, there could be as many as 500 houses on the site. That benefits only the developer.
	To the communities that we represent, more houses mean a greater strain on our already overworked infrastructure. We already suffer shortages of teachers, nurses, policemen and women, doctors and firemen and women. Our train service is becoming oversubscribed and, in the rush hour, it is beginning to be stretched beyond the bounds of safety.
	We can continue to pretend that we need houses, but before we build them—especially on greenfield sites—the agencies that serve our people must agree to that new build. It should not just be a matter for planning departments. The second part of the Bill would provide for a legally binding, multi-agency document for planners, developers, trade unions, statutory bodies, including health, education and police, to detail the infrastructure needs, the funding and the time scale for implementation before any housing permission is granted.
	I hope that will mean that some of our public workers will be able to receive a new type of social housing as part of the planning gain.
	Question put and agreed to.
	Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Derek Wyatt, Paul Farrelly, Mr. Robert Marshall-Andrews, Mr. Gwyn Prosser and Dr. Howard Stoate.

Planning (Publication and Infrastructure)

Mr. Derek Wyatt accordingly presented a Bill to require applications for planning permission to be published at the time notice of the application is given; to require planning permission for new housing or business development to be conditional upon fulfilment of planning obligations relating to infrastructure; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 21 June, and to be printed [Bill 136].

Modernisation of the House of Commons

[Relevant document: The Second Report from the Liaison Committee, HC 692, Session 2001–02, on Select Committees: Modernisation Proposals.]

Mr. Speaker: Before I call the Leader of the House to move motion 2, it may be helpful to say how I propose to proceed.
	Yesterday, the House agreed to a business motion which requires me to put the questions necessary to dispose of proceedings on motions 2 to 12 not later than four hours after the start of the debate on motion 2. I propose that motions 2 to 12, and any amendments to them that have been selected, be debated together. At the end of four hours, I will put the questions necessary to dispose of motion 2. I will then call Members to move formally motions 3 to 12 and any amendments selected to them that Members wish to move. The House will have an opportunity, if it so wishes, to vote on each motion and amendment. A list showing my selection of amendments has been placed in the No Lobby and in the Vote Office. After all proceedings on motions 2 to 12 have been completed, we will move to the debate on motion 13 on the code of conduct.

Robin Cook: I beg to move,
	That this House approves the First Report of the Select Committee on Modernisation of the House of Commons relating to Select Committees, House of Commons Paper No 224-I, and in particular welcomes its commitment to more specialist and support staff for select committees; is of the view that the package as a whole will strengthen the scrutiny role of the House; and invites the Liaison Committee to establish common objectives for select committees, taking into account the illustrative model set out in paragraph 34 of that report, namely
	to consider major policy initiatives
	to consider the Government's response to major emerging issues
	to propose changes where evidence persuades the Committee that present policy requires amendment
	to conduct pre-legislative scrutiny of draft bills
	to examine and report on main Estimates, annual expenditure plans and annual resource accounts
	to monitor performance against targets in the public service agreements
	to take evidence from each Minister at least annually
	to take evidence from independent regulators and inspectorates
	to consider the reports of Executive Agencies
	to consider, and if appropriate report on, major appointments by a Secretary of State or other senior Ministers
	to examine treaties within their subject areas.
	The origin of this debate goes back to July last year when the House rebelled over the names put to it for appointment to Select Committees. There was feeling among a majority of the House that an injustice had been done to my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, East (Donald Anderson), who had been left off Select Committees that they had chaired until the general election. I remember that debate vividly. It was one of the more interesting afternoons that I have spent in the House, as it fell to me to propose the motions and to listen to Members' comments on them.
	During the debate, there was much criticism of the Committee of Selection, which put a list before the House without questioning it. Rightly or wrongly, it was held partly responsible for the difficulty in which the House then found itself. I promised during the debate that the procedures for how we nominate Select Committees would be one of the first matters that the new Modernisation Committee would consider. Today's debate on the first report of the Modernisation Committee fulfils the commitment that I gave the House last July.
	My first point is to invite those who were unhappy with the position in which the House found itself to recall how they felt on that occasion. They should remember that they owe it to themselves to support the recommendation that is before us so as to prevent the House from ever again finding itself in that position.

Eric Forth: I am grateful to the Leader of the House for giving way so early in his speech, but will he confirm that, even if many Members were unhappy then and look for a solution now, the proposals before us need not be the only or the right solution? The Modernisation Committee has done its work and the Leader of the House has come here with the result of its deliberation, but it is not a question of take it or leave it. If the House felt that the solution was not a proper one to the problem, it would be entitled to say no at this stage and to ask the Committee to do more work.

Robin Cook: The right hon. Gentleman is perfectly correct. The House is always entitled to say no, and can say no in four hours from now when a vote is taken. However, this is not a new matter. We have been mulling it over for three or four years and it goes back to reports of the Liaison Committee in the past Parliament. Close on a year's study of the matter by the Modernisation Committee is before us, and there have been many ups and downs in trying to find the formula that is before us today. I have to say in all honesty and candour that, although the House is perfectly entitled to say no, I do not imagine that it will be feasible for the Modernisation Committee to come up with a better balance or one that is likely to command a greater consensus.
	My second point in support of the proposal is to stress that the recommendation will improve and certainly amend the process by which the House receives nominations for Select Committees. It does not and cannot interfere with the process by which each party selects its members for those nomination lists. The measure replaces the role of the Committee of Selection in putting nominations before the House but it does not replace the initiative of political parties in resolving who should represent them on those lists.

Stephen Ladyman: I confess to my right hon. Friend that I have serious doubts about his proposals because I do not understand on what basis the proposed Committee of Nomination will put aside the recommendations of a party making its list. If it will not put that recommendation aside, what is the point of giving it the right to do so?

Robin Cook: My hon. Friend makes a point that goes to the heart of the debate that we had last July when the Committee of Selection was criticised precisely because it did not put aside two of the proposals to the House. The Committee of Nomination will not be a court of first instance and it will not have the initiative to decide who should be on the lists, but it will be a court of appeal and be there to ensure that fair play is observed in each of the parties. It would be able to intervene if, as was the case last July, there was a sense that, in two of the names on the list, there had been an absence of fair play.

Patrick McLoughlin: I am interested in what the Leader of the House has just said. Surely there is a court of appeal now—it is the House of Commons. Although the Government faced problems last year and although my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) was once removed from a Select Committee, there have been only three occasions in the past 20 years when the system has perhaps been found lacking. Therefore, why do we have proposals for such widespread change?

Robin Cook: Three occasions make an argument for change. Unfortunately, one of those occasions was only last year and that is why I undertook in the debate that we would re-examine the matter. If I had failed to carry out that undertaking to the House, the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues would have been among the first to criticise me for failing to do so.
	I would say to the colleagues who have intervened that I am confident that any list submitted by the Labour party would stand up to robust scrutiny in the light of our new democratic process. We have changed our procedures since last July. We have made the process more democratic and put it in the hands of Labour Back Benchers. I welcome that reform. Indeed, I served on the review committee that drafted that reform. So the choice of Labour representatives now rests with Labour Members.
	The choice of Conservative representatives lies with Conservative Members—or some of them at any rate. I regret to say that the Conservative party has not taken the same steps as we have taken to make the process democratic. That is not a matter of responsibility for me; I cannot remedy that by changing the rules of the House, but I can ensure that those rules provide for the fair processing of the names and for fair play in their preparation.

David Winnick: Does my right hon. Friend accept that the Committee of Selection became totally discredited because, as with the previous Government and at the beginning of this Parliament, it simply approved, almost without discussion, the political party nominations? If the Committee of Nomination, which is being recommended, were to do the same, it would also be discredited. It is absolutely essential that the party Whips or the party management—hon. Members can call them what they like—on both sides of the House do not decide who will serve on the Select Committees; otherwise we will have the row that has led to the present position.

Robin Cook: I have a lot of sympathy with that point. My hon. Friend identified the nub of the matter, which is that Committees of Parliament, appointed by Parliament to scrutinise the Executive, should be free from party influence, particularly the party representing the Executive. The decision should be taken by Parliament, and it should be ultimately in the hands of Parliament and those whom it trusts to take an impartial decision. That is why we welcome the agreement of the Chairman of Ways and Means to act as the convener of the Committee of Nomination.

John McFall: My hon. Friend knows that the parliamentary Labour party has changed its position on this matter. He has lauded its democratic structures and the fact that it is in the hands of Back Benchers. In exceptional circumstances, could the Committee of Nomination overturn nominations from the PLP, or indeed those from the Conservative party or the Liberal Democrat party? I should like that aspect to be clarified.

Robin Cook: I am happy to confirm the fact that, of course, the Committee of Nomination, as the body responsible for putting the nominations on the Order Paper, will have the right to query the nominations of any party in the House. Indeed, we stated in our report that if it were unhappy with any list of nominations—for example, if it found itself in the position that the House found itself in last July—it would, in the first instance, refer back that list for the party to think again. I would imagine that, in those circumstances, almost every party in the House would indeed think again.

Andrew Dismore: Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Robin Cook: Perhaps I could finish answering the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Dumbarton (Mr. McFall). I shall then happily give way to my hon. Friend.
	I am personally very confident that now that we in the Labour party have a more open, transparent and democratic system its nominations will survive scrutiny by any fair-minded and impartial Committee.

Stephen McCabe: I wish to make the same point. Will my right hon. Friend tell the House what gives him such confidence that seven individuals will provide a fairer and more democratic system than the rules agreed by the PLP or the committee of appeal that the House currently affords us?

Robin Cook: I have to tell my hon. Friend that I am not suggesting for a minute that the Committee of Nomination would supplant the PLP process. The PLP process is a very important basis on which to decide who the Labour party wants to occupy the Labour places on the nomination list. The role of the Committee of Nomination will be to transfer those lists into nominations to put before the House and, in doing so and considering nominations from any party, including the Conservative party, to ensure that there is fair play. We can safely say, with hand on heart, that fair play was done.

Simon Thomas: rose—

Andrew Dismore: rose—

Robin Cook: I have multiple opportunities, but I shall give way to the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr. Thomas) because I fear that I shall be unkind to him later.

Simon Thomas: At the risk of alienating the Leader of the House even more from his Back Benchers by giving him some support, may I say that the difference between the previous system and what he proposes is that the Whips controlled the party lists and then the Whips approved the lists in the Committee of Selection? He proposes a far more open and accountable process for the House and all its Members. It is time to blow away the cobwebs that cause confusion and hide the processes of the House from the public.

Robin Cook: The hon. Gentleman provides a fair and accurate précis of the basis of many of the speeches to which I listened last July when the House was unhappy with the proposals before it. That is why we proposed the remedy offered on this occasion. I recall some of my hon. Friends sharing the criticism that the hon. Gentleman has just made.

Andrew Dismore: Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Robin Cook: If my hon. Friend will forgive me, I have been generous in giving way, and I owe it to the House to treat it to a speech, not just a series of answers.
	I was grateful to the Chairman of Ways and Means for having agreed to act as convener of the Committee of Nomination. In our report, we identified as the criteria for the Committee of Nomination that its members should have
	"a proven ability to perform with impartiality and a broad knowledge of the strengths and special interests of back-benchers."
	No one will better fulfil those criteria than the team of Chairs whom we elect to oversee our proceedings. [Interruption.] I remind my hon. Friends that we elect all of them. One of the advantages of having the Chairman of Ways and Means to convene the Committee is that, if we want to move quickly, he is one of the few people in office immediately after a general election. The Chairman of Ways and Means would therefore bring to the role of convening the Committee of Nomination the authority of having been freshly elected with the confidence of the House.
	It is, of course, important that the Chairman of Ways and Means should be kept free of party influence, and should also be kept free from great controversy, which I hope will be of reassurance to those who are apprehensive that the Committee of Nomination might meddle too much. The Committee of Nomination will not needlessly seek controversy, and will not needlessly interfere with the list submitted to it unless it feels that there are compelling grounds of an absence of fair play. It is best considered as a court of appeal, representative of Parliament not of party. In many ways, it would provide a forum for Members who felt that there had not been fair play, so that the matter could be rectified prior to it coming before the House.

Barbara Follett: Does my right hon. Friend agree that, although it has not exercised it, the Committee of Selection has the right to overturn a party nomination, in much the same way as the proposed Committee of Nomination?

Robin Cook: It is perfectly true—[Interruption.] I am unable to participate in the discussion taking place among my hon. Friends, but it is perfectly true that the Standing Orders provide that the Committee of Selection could vary a nomination coming before the House. In practice, as the House heard when this was debated last July, the Chairman of the Committee of Selection made it perfectly clear that he would regard it as improper to vary the list submitted by party Whips. That is precisely what prompted the search for a body that would be impartial and would not meddle or interfere unduly, but which would apply judgment when considering whether there had been fair play in the preparation of those lists.

John McWilliam: I merely wish to intervene to support my right hon. Friend. He is quite right. There was a Division in the Committee of Selection on this matter, which the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young) initiated. A vote was taken, and the motion was overturned.

Robin Cook: My hon. Friend spoke at length at the start of our debate last July. His speech influenced the view that emerged about the need for another process to handle the matter. My hon. Friend was vigorous, robust and frank, on all of which he is to be congratulated, in making plain that he did not regard it as the job of the Committee of Selection to change the party lists that were submitted to it.

Patrick McLoughlin: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Robin Cook: I have given way to the hon. Gentleman once already, and I have given way several times during my speech. If I may, I shall make progress.
	The Liaison Committee has endorsed the proposal that I am putting before the House. It says that it is a sensible new mechanism that is worth trying, and I agree with that. It appears, however, that in seeking to provide a Committee of Nomination to remove the controversy from nomination of Select Committees, I have not removed the controversy from the nomination of the Committee of Nomination. I understand the force of view of those who argue that the formula appears to reward gravity rather than to encourage freshness. [Interruption.] I am not sure on which side the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) places himself, but I am grateful for his concurrence.
	My initial proposal to the Modernisation Committee was that, as Leader of the House, I should nominate its members. The Committee decided that I was a suspect partisan source for a Committee that is not meant to be partisan, and I bow to its collective wisdom—hence the formula before the House which removes the basis of nomination to the Committee of Nomination from any party political influence.
	I recognise, however, that many of the newer Members think that the balance in the formula possibly rewards too heavily those who were here before them, so I propose to accept the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Central (Mr. Lloyd), which has the effect of re-balancing the membership of the Committee of Nomination and appointing to it two Members from each side—four in total—who were elected in the preceding Parliament. That would allow one third of the Committee of Nomination to be Members who were elected in 1997.

Patrick McLoughlin: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Robin Cook: If the hon. Gentleman does a deal with me and allows me to proceed with my speech thereafter, I will give way to him for the last time.

Patrick McLoughlin: Is the Leader of the House aware that the Committee of Selection has four Members from the 1997 intake?

Robin Cook: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for reinforcing the strength of my hon. Friend's amendment to have four Members from the 1997 intake on the Committee of Nomination. I welcome the opportunity to make common ground with the hon. Gentleman on that narrow point.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Mr. Bryant) has tabled sub-amendment (h) to amendment (d), tabled by our hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Central. It would insert the word "current" before "previous Parliament", thus allowing the four new Members to be drawn from the current election to Parliament in 2001, not just from those elected to the previous Parliament in 1997.
	At this moment in Parliament, one year on from the last general election, the amendment is perfectly sensible. I only remind my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda that in future Parliaments, the Committee of Nomination will be one of the first Committees to be set up, one hopes within two weeks of polling day. Whether in practice in those circumstances any party would choose as its representative a Member who had only just been elected is a matter of judgment.

Eric Forth: What about Alastair Campbell?

Robin Cook: I am not aware that Alastair Campbell is seeking a nomination to this place. I am sure if he does arrive here, we will all await his interventions with great anticipation. I have not the slightest doubt that the House will be full to hear his first one. However, I doubt that his first ambition would be to be appointed to the Committee of Nomination.

Peter Pike: There are many rumours about the press man at No. 10 wanting to take my place when I leave the House. He assures me that there is absolutely no truth in them, which he has made clear more than once. I am sure that he is correct in that.

Robin Cook: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that clarification. I am, of course, open to take interventions from any other hon. Member who wishes to give a similar assurance about their constituency.
	As the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda is permissive and leaves the choice open to the political parties concerned, I will be content, if my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Central is minded, to accept his hon. Friend's amendment to his amendment, which I, in turn, accept—I hope that the House is still with me. If we do accept both amendments, we will write into Standing Orders for the first time specific recognition of the right of new Members to be represented. That is another step forward for modernisation and sets a precedent that I hope the newer Members will support in the Division Lobby this evening.
	The Modernisation Committee took the opportunity of its review of the nomination process to go much wider and review the present state of Select Committees and how they might be improved. The result before the House today is the most comprehensive package to strengthen the Select Committee system in the 20 years since it was set up. It offers a number of gains that Select Committees have been seeking for some years, the first of which is more resources to assist them in their work.
	More specialised staff will be available to support all members of Select Committees, and there will be more administrative staff to help the Chairmen with their burden. There will be more professional help to assist with the design and layout of Select Committee reports. We want to harness the most modern technology and the most attractive design so that we can get across to the public the views of Select Committees. We have made some progress in recent months. I am pleased to tell the House that since January we have removed all Roman numerals from Committee reports. Significant though those steps are, there is a long way to go, which is why we propose that we should have available to us the best professional help in designing the reports.
	In return for those additional resources, we are looking for greater focus and discipline in the way in which Select Committees approach their role. That is why we have suggested an illustrative model of the core tasks of Select Committees. I stress that it is illustrative. We are inviting the Liaison Committee to consider the model that we have proposed, to refine it further if it wishes and to make whatever changes it thinks appropriate in the light of its greater knowledge of the working of Select Committees. However, one has to start somewhere, and it is good that the Modernisation Committee has put on the table what we believe should be the core tasks and duties of Select Committees.

David Curry: As the Leader of the House has in the past two or three minutes removed the possibility of at least two votes, perhaps I can help by removing the possibility of a third. My concern was that the list was very prescriptive and all those tasks would be mandatory on the Committees. Given the number of weeks in the year in which we meet, even with Sub-Committees that list would constitute an intolerable burden that would be undeliverable and exclude the possibility of doing a little free thinking, which is one of the tasks of the Committees. If the Leader will make it clear that those are suggestions of the sort of agenda that the Liaison Committee would want to look at, and that they are not intended to bind it, I will be more than content to withdraw my amendment when the time comes.

Robin Cook: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his offer. Of course we would welcome the views of the Liaison Committee, which cannot be bound by the Modernisation Committee; indeed, we do not seek to bind it in the motion before the House, which leaves it to the discretion of the Liaison Committee how it proceeds with the list.
	I believe, however, that there is a lot of common ground between the two Committees. For instance. I welcome the strong passage on financial scrutiny in the Liaison Committee's response to the report. Indeed, I thought that the Committee was possibly erring on the side of being rather stern with Select Committees when it described their performance of financial scrutiny as relatively patchy and being the fault of the Committees. That is a touch harsh. Financial scrutiny is necessarily a challenging and technical task.
	What might help Select Committees with that is our recommendation, before the House today, that we take up the offer of the National Audit Office to second staff to the new unit of special advisers which we are proposing. That will make it more practical for Select Committees to carry out financial scrutiny as we suggest in our core tasks, and it may make that scrutiny more penetrating.

Barry Sheerman: Following his response to the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry), will my right hon. Friend be a little more specific? The concern of many Select Committee Chairmen is that the flexibility of Committees is very important. My Committee, the Education and Skills Committee, recently was pleased to hold an inquiry into individual learning accounts. The prescriptive bullet points before the House do not include such inquiries. There is only so much time to do the work of the Committee, and it is important to be flexible, and not to be in a straitjacket.

Robin Cook: I wish to be helpful to my hon. Friend. If he looks again at the list of proposed duties, he will see that his important inquiry into individual learning accounts comes squarely into the second category—considering the Government's response to major emerging issues. We appoint Select Committees for a Parliament so it should be possible for all of them to touch on each of the duties that I have outlined.

John McFall: I welcome my right hon. Friend's common objectives for Select Committees, but I agree with several of my colleagues on the Liaison Committee that, to date, the examination of reports on main estimates, annual expenditure plans and annual resource accounts has not been our top priority. To effect change, we need much more support. My right hon. Friend mentioned the National Audit Office. What discussions has he had with Sir John Bourn and others, and what will the central support unit consist of, as it will have an onerous, but welcome, task, if undertaken properly with adequate resources?

Robin Cook: I welcome what my hon. Friend said. The Modernisation Committee and the Liaison Committee share common ground in their belief that we have not achieved rigour or consistency in financial scrutiny, which should be at the heart of Select Committees' work.
	On the question of resources, my hon. Friend will be aware that the Comptroller and Auditor General has said that he is willing to second staff to assist Select Committees—and not just the Public Accounts Committee—with the work of financial scrutiny. I cannot think of a better source of expertise to support Select Committees, which could use NAO contacts to access the NAO's entire network. I hope that we can turn that offer into reality in the next year.
	I should like to refer to one more proposed duty for Select Committees. The House will be aware that, over a period of years, I hope that the publication of Bills in draft will become the norm, rather than the exception. If Parliament wants a real influence on the shape of public Bills, it has to get in on the act much earlier than Second Reading, when party positions are already set in stone, so it needs to see Bills in draft. The report explains that pre-legislative scrutiny of draft Bills should normally be the job of the appropriate Select Committee.

Donald Anderson: Is not another danger of those illustrative examples the fact that the agenda will be set by the Executive, not the legislature? The legislation to be examined in advance is Government legislation; public appointments to be examined are by definition appointments made by the Government; the examination of Green Papers is, again, an Executive initiative. If, with the limited time available, a Committee followed slavishly the tick list of examples, there would be little time left for initiatives by the legislature itself.

Robin Cook: I refer my right hon. Friend to the list in today's Order Paper, the third objective of which is
	"to propose changes where evidence persuades the Committee that present policy requires amendment".
	That is not dependent on the Government or Executive taking the initiative; it leaves it entirely open to the Select Committee to decide when policy needs to be changed. That said, it is difficult to get away from the fact that if Select Committees are the main instrument for scrutinising the Government, they will have to spend some of their time scrutinising what the Government propose to do. In the last Parliament, my right hon. Friend's Committee did a good job in its pre-legislative scrutiny of the draft Bill setting up the International Criminal Court, for which I was grateful; it helped us to get the Bill through the House more quickly than we otherwise would have done. Pre-legislative scrutiny will be of benefit to both the House and the Government in making sure that when Bills come before Parliament, they are better thought-out and their rough edges have been rounded off.

Jean Corston: My right hon. Friend will know that the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which I chair, has in the past 18 months undertaken to examine all legislation, as published on Second Reading, for compliance with various human rights instruments. It is difficult to do that under current parliamentary procedure, given restraints both on time and the opportunity for right hon. and hon. Members to absorb the lessons of pre-legislative scrutiny.
	More time would allow the Government to reflect at greater length on the outcome of the pre-legislative scrutiny and make for better legislation all round.

Robin Cook: I am very much aware of the challenges to the Select Committee that my hon. Friend chairs. She and I have discussed the issue before, and we have sought to be helpful to the Committee. I entirely endorse her point. The more we produce Bills in draft, the more it will be possible for all the various investigative and scrutiny Committees to make their contribution, including the Joint Committee on Human Rights.
	It must be right that the people who perform that pre-legislative scrutiny of a draft Bill are the Members with the specialist interest and knowledge whom we find on the Select Committees. That is why we propose in the first instance—not always, but in the first instance—that pre-legislative scrutiny should be a duty on the Select Committees.
	Taken together, the package will strengthen the Select Committee system. It has been warmly welcomed by the Liaison Committee. Indeed, in its press release about the paper from the Modernisation Committee, the Liaison Committee described it as "excellent"—a view that, I hope, will last at least as long as the debate this afternoon.
	There was one issue to which—I must be frank with the House—nearly all members of the Liaison Committee objected violently: our proposal that the size of Select Committees be increased to 15. The proposal was born of the problems of last July, when we discovered that far more hon. Members wanted to get on to a departmental Select Committee than there were places for them. Even now, 186 Beck Benchers are not on any investigative Select Committee. Our proposal to increase the membership of departmental Select Committees to 15 would have provided an additional 50 places for those hon. Members.
	At my meeting last week with the Liaison Committee, I was exposed to strong arguments to the contrary. In particular, the Chairs of the Select Committees expressed their worry about the danger of a loss of cohesion if the Select Committees became larger, and the problem of making sure that there was consensus among a greater number. I was struck by the force of the point from the Chair of the Select Committee on Public Administration, who told me that his recent report on House of Lords reform would not have been unanimous in a larger Select Committee.
	Given that discussion and those views, I have reached a compromise with the Liaison Committee that is expressed in the motions before the House, in which the decision to increase the size of a Select Committee will be in the hands of each Select Committee. If the Committee decides to increase its size, it is free to do so up to 15, but it is not under any compulsion to do so. I hope that that sensible, permissive compromise will command general agreement in the House.
	Conversely, I proposed a reduction in the size of the Liaison Committee. In the Committee's response, I found that, unfortunately, that proposal was almost as unwelcome as my proposal to increase the size of other Select Committees. I am therefore not proceeding with it tonight, but many on the Liaison Committee recognise that there is a problem with the size of the Select Committee, and that the problem is likely to be aggravated if it proceeds to hold public hearings, especially if those public hearings are as high profile as with the Prime Minister.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda has tabled another amendment that addresses the issue. I regret to say that on this occasion I cannot help my hon. Friend by commending it to the House. Its narrow effect would be, for instance, to leave out of the Liaison Committee the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, which I do not think would be right. However, I agree with my hon. Friend that there is a problem, and I very much hope that the Liaison Committee will be willing to consider it and propose a solution.

Pete Wishart: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that Select Committees need a minimum of 15 members, to ensure that we in the minority parties are represented? At present, Plaid Cymru and the Scottish national party have no place on a non-regional departmental Select Committee, and we find that unacceptable.

Robin Cook: I am not sure that the hon. Gentleman has found the argument that would most commend itself to hon. Members on the Benches behind me. As he is aware, I understand that the parties to which he refers did not receive the best allocation of places last time round, when they were represented in the discussions by the Liberal Democrat party. As he knows, we have addressed that issue and those parties are no longer represented by the Liberal Democrat party; indeed, many hon. Members in other parts of the House would wish to commend them on their freedom from the Liberal Democrats. Over time, we shall see what remedy there may be, but I do not think that the House is likely to vote for an increase to 15 members simply because of the position of those who represent—if I may be frank—4 per cent. of the total membership of the House.

Kevin Brennan: Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Robin Cook: Yes, I shall on this occasion, but I must then make some progress if others are to speak.

Kevin Brennan: On the size of the Liaison Committee, while I accept the point that my right hon. Friend makes about the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Mr. Bryant) and I, does he recall that I raised the matter in business questions last week? Does he agree that when the Prime Minister appears before the Liaison Committee, the House will be as much under the spotlight as the Prime Minister is? If the Committee has 34 members, including those from the domestic Committees, the House will not be seen in the modern light in which we would like it to be shown.

Robin Cook: I agree that there is an issue that must be addressed. I am happy to say that when I spoke to the Liaison Committee last week, it volunteered the fact that it will be as much under examination as the Prime Minister when he appears before it. I hope that the Committee will listen in the intervening period to the views expressed in this debate and consider what consensual solution it might offer.

Paul Tyler: Will the Leader of the House indicate to the Liaison Committee that a degree of self-interest seems apparent on that issue? Is it not somewhat ironic that a Committee of 34 members thinks that it is impossible for other Committees to come to a sensible conclusion with only 15 members, while its own membership of 34, which is already in place, is apparently entirely logical?

Robin Cook: The hon. Gentleman makes an entirely fair point with great force and eloquence. As I am seeking hard to build the maximum possible consensus, he will forgive me if I do not endorse what he suggests on this occasion, but the whole House will have heard it.

Alan Williams: rose—

Robin Cook: I was probably wise not to give my endorsement.

Alan Williams: I speak in the spirit of good will that emanates from my right hon. Friend and in recognition of the fact that I am the poor man who will have to chair a Committee of 34 members trying to carry out an investigation. The Liaison Committee indicated in response to the Modernisation Committee that it did not see any point in removing representation of the domestic Committees because such a change would reduce its membership by only six and because we are not an interrogatory Committee. It is only in the past three weeks that we have taken on an interrogatory role like that of other Committees. Therefore, our judgment was made in one context, but we are being criticised in another.

Robin Cook: My right hon. Friend's statement is very encouraging. I recall that when I appeared before the Liaison Committee last week, it was repeatedly put to me that the problem about Committees with 15 members was that not everyone would be able to put a question to the witness. I think that that argument must apply with even greater force to a Committee of 34 members. He and his colleagues would be wise to address that point as a matter of urgency.

Nicholas Winterton: Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that I was not unsupportive of him in the Liaison Committee last week? If the Select Committees are to undertake their core tasks, all of which are very valuable—I refer not least to proper scrutiny of estimates and expenditure—I am concerned that it may be necessary for Committees to increase their membership from 11 to 15. They may have to do so if they are to undertake their essential tasks of scrutinising legislation and holding the Government of the day to account.

Robin Cook: The hon. Gentleman deserves a mention in dispatches as the only member of the Liaison Committee who supported me on the increase in size, but regrettably he and I together do not a consensus make.
	I remind hon. Members that the motion—I hope that it will be accepted, because it was a compromise with the Liaison Committee—provides for Select Committees to increase their size. Come the next Parliament, we will of course be required to establish them with a minimum membership of 11 so that they can first take the decision on whether they wish to increase their size. In the circumstances of a fresh general election, a new Parliament and many Members disappointed at not having been appointed to a departmental Select Committee, Committees will find that they are under pressure to contemplate some increase in size, even if not up to 15.
	I wish to refer to one last point from the report before I conclude. We have given the House the opportunity to reach a decision on whether the Chairs of Select Committees should be paid. We made no recommendation to the House on that—indeed, the Modernisation Committee was split on the issue—but we agreed unanimously that it was right that the matter should be put to the House to enable hon. Members to reach a conclusion. That is why there are two alternative motions. The only point of argument that I would make is that if the House were to vote for salaries for Chairs of Select Committees, that would give extra force to motion 7, which provides that no Chair should remain in office for more than two Parliaments.

Eric Forth: For those of us who believe that the matter should be looked at in a wider context—sadly, amendments in my name that would have reflected that were not selected—it would be helpful if the Leader of the House could indicate whether, if the House were to approve the motion on Select Committee Chairmen and additional pay, his Committee would be prepared urgently to consider the wider issue of whether additional pay might be appropriate for other Members with additional responsibilities. I, for one, would be reluctant to single out Select Committee Chairmen, despite their great worth and distinction, then leave it at that, because others—for example, the Chairmen's Panel—may deserve similar treatment. Can the Leader of the House help me on that matter?

Robin Cook: The Modernisation Committee considered Chairs of Standing Committees, but concluded that they did not have the same weight of responsibility and administration that falls on Chairs of Select Committees. The decision before the House is therefore limited to Chairs of Select Committees.

Andrew Bennett: Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Robin Cook: I should like to respond to the last point before I give way again.
	I would not wish to make the decision that the House takes conditional on what might happen next, but it is of course always open to us to return to the matter in the context of wider issues.

Andrew Bennett: Before my right hon. Friend finishes, will he give a little more thought to term limitation? One or two Select Committees are not over-popular. For example, there is not a great queue of Members wanting to get on to the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments. Having served on it for 28 years—for half that time making it clear to the Whips that I would be pleased to be replaced—it seems a little unfair to penalise someone who is serving on one of the less popular Select Committees.
	Another difficulty is that of the changing names of Select Committees. Presumably, Members who have chaired the Committees covering matters that are dealt with by the Department with responsibility for the environment would not be covered by the amendment.

Robin Cook: I am familiar with the problem to which my hon. Friend refers. He has done sterling work on the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments. In retrospect, it is perhaps a pity that there is no amendment on the Order Paper that would enable us to confine the effect of the motion to those on the investigative Select Committees, who we had in mind when making the proposal on salaries. I assure my hon. Friend that I will be happy to revisit the matter in the event of the motion being carried, so that we can protect his position before another 28 years have passed.

Martin Salter: Will my right hon. Friend remind us of the other non-ministerial appointments that draw a salary from the public purse? I understand that the Opposition pairing Whip is currently paid—for what, I do not know. Clarification would be useful.

Robin Cook: I understand that, apart from members of the Executive, those who receive a salary are: members of the Speaker's team, the Leader of the official Opposition and, I believe, the Opposition Chief Whip and the Opposition pairing Whip. It is for every hon. Member to consider whether that constitutes the most rational choice of priorities. [Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst obviously regards it as rational.

Eric Forth: I said the opposite.

Robin Cook: Hon. Members will consider a motion on the payment of Chairs of Select Committees. I regret that the right hon. Gentleman's amendment on the subject was not selected. It is well beyond my capability to fix that on his behalf, and it has obliged me to remove a whole five minutes from my speech. I apologise for that. However, to cheer him up, I am prepared to accept his surviving amendment on term limits. It would provide for a maximum period of service of two Parliaments or eight years as a Select Committee Chair. I offer that to the right hon. Gentleman as a modest consolation prize.

Gwyneth Dunwoody: I can cheerfully comment on all the proposals because, whichever amendment is accepted, I shall probably never serve on a Select Committee again.
	Will my right hon. Friend make it clear that Chairmen who oppose payment do so because we believe that the strength of Select Committees is that all members are equal? They all work together and appoint their Chairmen, and we strongly believe that payment would make Select Committee chairmanship another office of patronage under whatever arrangements prevailed.

Robin Cook: My hon. Friend is right to say that there are strong and sincerely held views on both sides of the question. It is fair to say that the majority of the Liaison Committee favoured payment when it was last discussed. That is not necessarily a self-serving perspective. As the Modernisation Committee report points out, if hon. Members want to show that they attach equal value to scrutiny and service on the Executive, they must consider whether the only real opportunity of additional salary should be for those in the Executive rather than those who commit themselves to a career of scrutiny.

Chris Mullin: Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Robin Cook: How can I resist?

Chris Mullin: I agree with my right hon. Friend, but emphasise that the nettle must be grasped if we are serious about Select Committees. Otherwise we are destined to watch the best and brightest continually seduced away by office or its prospect. Some members of my Select Committee have lasted as long as two months before becoming someone's Parliamentary Private Secretary. The only hope of reversing the trend is increasing the status of Select Committees by some of the methods that my right hon. Friend suggested.

Robin Cook: In fairness to my hon. Friend, the House should know that he was seduced away from the Executive to be the Chair of a Select Committee. He makes the fair point that hon. Members must tackle the issue and make a clear decision. I warn hon. Members that if motion 5 is carried, motion 6 cannot be put. Those who share my hon. Friend's view must therefore defeat motion 5 and carry motion 6.
	We have taken the opportunity of the debate to implement several agreed recommendations on other matters from the Liaison Committee, the Procedure Committee and various Joint Committees. They are expressed in motions 8 to 12, none of which is controversial, and I hope that hon. Members can accept them formally.
	The other measures add up to the biggest package for strengthening Select Committees since they were established 20 years ago. They stand alongside the historic decision of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to give evidence twice a year to the Liaison Committee. It is the first time that any Prime Minister has agreed to be questioned by any investigative committee. Taken together, the measures demonstrate our commitment to working with the House to make the Select Committee system a success.
	I have often said that good scrutiny makes for good government. I commend the package to the House as providing for better scrutiny and better government, if that is possible.

Greg Knight: I am aware that a lot of right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House wish to take part in the debate, so I do not intend to detain hon. Members as long as the Leader of the House did.
	I start by paying tribute to all the hard work undertaken by all Members from all parties who serve on Select Committees. They do an invaluable job, and they have the time to explore in detail many of the issues that are too complex to be examined in depth on the Floor of the House. We owe them all our gratitude.
	I also pay tribute to the work of the Chairman of the Modernisation Committee, the Leader of the House. It is clear from his energy, involvement and initiative that he not only takes his role seriously but is genuinely interested in bringing about change. For that reason, I must advise him that he needs to watch his back, because it is clear that not all his ministerial colleagues share his enthusiasm for what he is seeking to do. Indeed, the Modernisation Committee is still reflecting on whether all his proposed changes are necessary in the interests either of modernisation or of scrutiny. The right hon. Gentleman has an agenda, however, and some parts of it are clearly desirable.
	The first motion on the Order Paper in the right hon. Gentleman's name has our support, and I commend it to the House unamended. It seeks to increase the support staff for our Select Committees, and to strengthen the scrutiny that they give the decisions of the Executive.
	The Leader of the House was, I think, incorrect when he said that Select Committees had been with us only for some 20 years. My understanding is that they have been used by the House for centuries. They may have been with us in their present form for only 20 years, but the setting up of a small group of Members constituted to gather information, interview witnesses if appropriate, and produce detailed reports is not new to the House.
	In their scrutiny work, Select Committees use a variety of working methods. Their work can vary from the holding of a full inquiry, with the gathering of oral and written evidence leading ultimately to a published report, to taking a single evidence session to focus attention on a particular issue. Sometimes the Committees decide to visit people and places, here in the UK or overseas, to discover how problems can be handled or approached in different ways. At any one time, most Select Committees have several subjects under consideration.
	Currently, it is up to each Select Committee to decide how to interpret its terms of reference. The Conservatives want to see that independence maintained. I do not think, however, that it comes amiss for the Modernisation Committee to suggest certain core tasks, such as those listed in the motion. Some right hon. and hon. Members, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry), are concerned that that motion will result in the loss of a Committee's discretion as to how it goes about its business. I want to underline what the Leader of the House said by referring my right hon. Friend to the word "illustrative" in the motion, which I hope will reassure him that although the activities mentioned are core tasks of which each Select Committee should take note, they will in no way inhibit the absolute right of a Select Committee to carry out its work as it sees fit.

Simon Thomas: I support what the right hon. Gentleman has been saying, but will he take on board the fact that at least one Committee—the Select Committee on Environmental Audit, on which I serve—is not a departmental Select Committee, and therefore does not shadow Ministers or legislation from any particular Department? Those core tasks are not quite so appropriate for that Committee. Will he bear in mind that we need to keep the flexibility of such Committees, which consider the work of all Departments and the sustainable development of all the Government's workings, so that they, too, can operate with the additional resources if necessary?

Greg Knight: I agree. I refer the hon. Gentleman to page 13 of the Modernisation Committee's first report. Paragraph 33 states
	"Inevitably the specific work of the scrutiny committees"—
	that is, departmental Select Committees—
	"will vary and each should retain the freedom to balance its work in the light of the duties of its Department or in response to emerging issues."
	The report makes it clear that the Committee does not seek to take away the current flexibility.

Peter Pike: Should we not be reminded repeatedly of the many successes that Select Committees have achieved in their present form? Those successes are often underestimated, not just here but in the country as a whole. Is not the report's main purpose to strengthen the Committees, in line with what the Liaison Committee suggested in the last Parliament? Before the general election the Government did not seem prepared to do that, but the Chairman of the Modernisation Committee has gone a long way towards meeting the Liaison Committee's requirements.

Greg Knight: I agree with the right hon. Member for Swansea, East (Donald Anderson). I think that Select Committee Chairmen should have the right to venture into areas that they consider important within their remit, rather than merely walking in the footprints and the shadow of the Government of the day.
	Amendment (d) to the motion on modernisation of the House of Commons, tabled by the hon. Member for Foyle (Mr. Hume), expresses the concerns that exist in some parts of the House about minority representation, and I am a little worried about that.
	The representation of minority parties used to be dealt with, quite adequately, through the usual channels. I believe that when my party was in government and I was part of the usual channels, the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) undertook, on behalf of the third largest party, to ensure that all minority parties were represented fairly. The Leader of the House touched on that in his speech. I understand that the system has broken down somewhat, in that the current Liberal Democrat Chief Whip, the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr. Stunell), has decided that he is not able, or willing, to undertake the task, and it has now been given to the Government Whips Office.
	I hope that the hon. Member for Foyle will not need to press his amendment, and that further discussion through the usual channels will alleviate the concerns that clearly exist. I must say I am rather surprised that the Modernisation Committee has two Liberal Democrat members; perhaps they will be prepared to give up one of those places to another minority party.

Pete Wishart: It was less a question of the Liberal Democrats' abandoning that task, and more a question of our discharging them from it. We will vote on this issue, because we have grave concerns about the representation of minority parties. I think it only fair that we should be able to represent ourselves properly in the Committee structure.

Greg Knight: I hear that the minority parties have no confidence in the Liberal Democrats. I cannot say that I am at all surprised, but I hoped that they would be able to develop a working relationship with the Patronage Secretary. Perhaps as the debate proceeds, they will be prepared to engage in "behind the curtain" discussions in an attempt to resolve the matter.

Lady Hermon: Rather than writing us off as a minority party, will the right hon. Gentleman—and, indeed, all Members—address a serious issue? I refer to the representation of the people of Northern Ireland. The Labour party, regrettably in my opinion, does not even operate in Northern Ireland, so no Northern Ireland Labour Member will be returned to the House. Conservative and Liberal Democrat candidates regularly lose their deposits at Northern Ireland elections. The Ulster Unionist party is the largest party in Northern Ireland, and represents the majority of people there. Surely to goodness it should be represented on Select Committees, which is a good reason for increasing their size. This should not be a minority party argument; the people of Northern Ireland need to be represented.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Lady has gone well beyond an intervention.

Greg Knight: I shall not risk being ruled out of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker, by getting involved in the politics of Northern Ireland, but I do believe that minority parties should be properly represented. Increasing the size of the Committees is one way of doing that, but the point that I was trying to make is that other methods exist. One is to ensure that the Liberal Democrats are not claiming two places on the Committee when the minority parties perhaps ought to have one of them. I hope that the matter can be looked at again.
	The Leader of the House has tabled proposals to set up a Committee of Nomination, to allow Select Committees to change their size after having been established, and to introduce term limits on the service of Select Committee Chairmen. The setting up of a Committee of Nomination gives rise to two issues, the first of which is whether we really need to make any changes. If the answer is yes, we then need to decide what form those changes should take. I have always been unconvinced of the need for change, and as the Modernisation Committee is aware, I have remained an agnostic on this issue throughout its deliberations. I take the view contrary to that expressed by some Labour Members, particularly the hon. Member for Walsall, North (David Winnick). The current nomination system works rather well, and it is a gross distortion to say that it is totally discredited.
	The Committee of Selection has existed for more than 20 years. In that time it has twice taken decisions that could rightly be criticised, and which it perhaps should not have sought to implement. The first instance involved a member of my party, and the second and more recent one involved two members of the Labour party. However, in my experience the Whips' influence on the Committee of Selection is not malign. The Whips Offices of all major parties have a vested interest in keeping their parliamentary colleagues happy. In my experience, if they feel that an injustice has been done, some attempt is usually made in another arena to right the perceived wrong.

Tony Wright: I am slightly perplexed by the right hon. Gentleman's last point. As recently as 12 February last year, the official Opposition used a Supply day to table a motion in support of the Liaison Committee's report, "Shifting the Balance", on the basis that they were dissatisfied with the way in which such matters operated, and that they wanted an independent mechanism. Perhaps he can explain why his view has changed in the space of a year.

Greg Knight: My view has remained constant since 1983, when I first became a Member of this House. I have not changed my opinion at all. As the hon. Gentleman knows, Members often support a Committee's report when they agree with more than 50 per cent. of its contents. The fact that they support it does not necessarily mean that they agree with every paragraph and word.

John Taylor: I should point out to the House that, like my right hon. Friend, I have participated in every meeting of the Modernisation Committee, and he made his position clear in at least three such meetings. With regard to change, he is something of an agnostic and is tolerably satisfied with the status quo. Because we are a smallish minority, we have tended to take a consensual view.

Greg Knight: I am grateful for my hon. Friend's protection.

Stephen Ladyman: I am trying to understand the advice that the right hon. Gentleman is giving the House, and I think that I agree with him on the point that he is making. I like the current system, and the parliamentary Labour party now has a mechanism, free of the Whips, for deciding whom we put forward. However, the right hon. Gentleman advised us to support the motion on modernisation of the House of Commons, which approves the report hook, line and sinker, including the principle of changing the mechanism for selecting members of Select Committees. The first motion on Select Committees deals with the detail. If the right hon. Gentleman is against the principle, he should surely advise the House to vote against the modernisation motion.

Greg Knight: No, that is not the case. We have separate motions on the Order Paper and I have dealt with my views on the first of them. I am now addressing the specifics of setting up the Committee of Nomination, from which arise two questions. First, does the House wish to bring about change? I am not convinced that the present system has failed us. I am tolerably satisfied with it, so I do not seek any change. However, as a member of a Select Committee on which the majority of members wished to bring about change, I was faced with a second question. Did I leave the debate and allow the other members to carry on in my absence, or did I play a full and constructive part in the debate about change without advocating it myself? I chose the latter course of action.

Robert Marshall-Andrews: The right hon. Gentleman made a couple of points about the old Committee of Selection. First, he said that in his experience it had made only two wrong decisions. Surely the problem with the Committee was that it never made any decisions at all. The second, allied point he made was that it was not a corrupted body because the Whips on it had a vested interest in keeping their own punters happy. However, is it not true that in most cases Whips used the power of appointment to Select Committees to control their Members, not to keep them happy? In those circumstances, what sort of a court of appeal was the Committee on Selection?

Greg Knight: The Committee made two decisions that were clearly wrong, and which offended many hon. Members. Those were the two matters that I mentioned earlier. I did not say that the Committee made only two errors of judgment. I pointed out those two glaring mistakes, but two in 23 years is not a bad record. I do not accept, either, that the Committee of Selection has always been a Whips' rubber stamp. When I was a member of the Government Whips Office, the Chairman of the Committee, the late Sir Marcus Fox, did not always follow the advice of his party's Whips, and on more than one occasion the Committee made a decision that was not in accordance with the wishes of the Whips. The Committee did show an element of independence, which the hon. and learned Gentleman suggests was lacking.

John Taylor: Is not it clear—not least from that intervention by a Labour Member—that Conservative Members have a more comfortable relationship with their Whips Office than do Labour Members?

Greg Knight: There are many parts of my shadow portfolio that I find less agreeable than others, but I do not wish to start speculating about the relationships of Labour Members with their Whips Office. None the less, my hon. Friend makes his point well.
	If—I emphasise that word—a majority of Members want a change, the most appropriate way forward is that proposed by the Modernisation Committee. Therefore I do not support the amendments tabled by the hon. Members for Manchester, Central (Mr. Lloyd), for South Swindon (Ms Drown) and for Rhondda (Mr. Bryant), and I do not recommend them to my hon. Friends.
	In the third motion on Select Committees, the Leader of the House proposes that term limits be introduced for Select Committee Chairmen for the first time, and suggests that each Chairman should serve for a maximum of two Parliaments. I have always regarded term limits for Select Committee Chairmen as desirable, all the more so if we decide to pay Chairmen for their extra work on our behalf. I therefore support the proposal, but as part of a package; I shall urge Opposition Members to support the proposal that Select Committee Chairmen be paid.

Stephen McCabe: I accept the argument about term limits for Select Committee Chairmen, especially if those Chairmen are to be paid. However, is there not also an argument for imposing term limits on members of the Committee of Nomination? The Committee's quorum of seven very powerful people will orchestrate the proceedings of the House. Should there not be a term limit for them?

Greg Knight: I have no difficulty with that suggestion.
	The Leader of the House was good enough to say that he would be prepared to accept amendment (a) to the third motion on Select Committees, which stands in my name and that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth). The motion would limit the term of a Select Committee Chairman to two Parliaments, but in our system we do not have fixed-term Parliaments. The period covered by two Parliaments could therefore be anything between one year and 10 years.

Gwyneth Dunwoody: Does the right hon. Gentleman not think it slightly illogical to say that we should trust Select Committees to appoint their Chairmen and decide their programmes, but we should not trust them to appoint a Chairman for a third term?

Greg Knight: In many Parliaments around the world it is accepted that people freely elected to be Chairmen of powerful Committees ought to have some limit to their tenure. The United States of America offers an example that confirms my argument rather the hon. Lady's.
	To return to my point about the period covered by two Parliaments, I am sure that the House remembers what happened in 1974, when we had two general elections in the same year. That could easily happen again in the future.
	I firmly expect that after the next election, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith) will be in No. 10 Downing street, where he will remain for many years. However, what if the massive Conservative revival that everyone expects is not quite enough to get him there? What if the arithmetic after the next general election is such that the two main parties have the same number of seats, with the Liberal Democrats holding the balance of power with perhaps three or four seats in total?
	In that scenario, two general elections could take place in quick succession, as the outgoing Prime Minister desperately tried to cling to power before the Conservative party ultimately won through. Most attention would focus on the final result, but what about the poor Select Committee Chairmen? They would be condemned to serve for only a fraction of the time that the House could reasonably have expected. That is why amendment (a) would add
	"or a continuous period of 8 years, whichever is the greater period."
	The amendment is fair and equitable, and I hope that the House will approve it.

Stephen Ladyman: In view of the right hon. Gentleman's rosy predictions about the Conservative party's fortunes, may I suggest that he remember the writings of Horace, who said that the shortness of life prevents us from entertaining far-off hopes? Do his remarks not suggest that my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) is correct that the judgment should be left to the Select Committees, and that we should not interfere?

Greg Knight: No, I do not agree. Eight years is a fair crack of the whip for anyone; any Minister who serves for eight years thinks that he has been very lucky. To give a Select Committee Chairman, however good, a term limit of eight years is reasonable and fair, because it would allow other talented Members, who might otherwise not have the chance, to be considered for that position.
	We accept the proposals about the size of Committees. Indeed, the proposition tabled by the Leader of the House is very similar to a suggestion that I made to the Modernisation Committee a few weeks ago.
	Our Select Committees have served Parliament and the public well, and I believe that the first motion on Select Committees will make their role even more effective by providing additional resources for specialist support staff. If that enables Parliament to keep the Executive under more effective scrutiny, surely we should all welcome it.

Alan Williams: On behalf of the Liaison Committee, may I welcome the undeniable commitment of the Leader of the House in trying to modernise and update the procedures of this House—whether one agrees with every proposal or not? I think my right hon. Friend deserves full credit for that from hon. Members on both sides of the House.
	It has been a dramatic few months for those of us who have been involved in scrutiny for many years. For more than 12 years, the Public Accounts Committee saw Chancellor after Chancellor try to get access not just to some but to all the quangos and to open the door that was permanently closed to Government companies. Yet three months ago, after the Sharman committee—which was set up following pressure from the Public Accounts Committee—the Government accepted all those recommendations. The National Audit Office now has full access, as requested by the Public Accounts Committee. The Public Accounts Commission has already invited the Comptroller and Auditor General to submit proposals for examining the quangos and companies regarding extra budget and value for money.
	Three weeks ago, as the Leader of the House said, the Liaison Committee had a quite unexpected approach from the Prime Minister; there was a message saying that he would call at 12.30 pm. The Prime Minister asked whether the Liaison Committee would welcome the opportunity to have full and public sessions with him twice a year.
	We are still negotiating the details, but I can tell the House that the first session will take place before the summer recess. The Prime Minister will not know the questions in advance. We are looking at times and venues. Because of Prime Minister's Question Time and Members' Monday travel arrangements, it looks as if Tuesday mornings will be an appropriate time. Because of the anticipated extra demand from people to attend and the size of the Liaison Committee, we are looking into the possibility of holding the hearings in the Boothroyd Room in Portcullis House.

Chris Bryant: My right hon. Friend has referred to the size of the Liaison Committee. He mentioned to me earlier that he has investigated the number of seats in the Boothroyd Room. I think that there are 27 seats, whereas there are 34 members of the Liaison Committee. Bearing in mind the objections of the Leader of the House to my amendment, will the Liaison Committee consider a self-denying ordinance whereby only departmental Committee Chairs, my right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams) and the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee would take evidence?

Alan Williams: There are 27 chairs in the horseshoe, so only 27 Members would be able to question the witness, but members of the Liaison Committee get on well together. At our meeting on Thursday, we shall consider that point, among other practical, logistical issues. We shall also discuss how to use our time to the best advantage of the Committee, the House and the Prime Minister.
	To some extent, the proposals of the Modernisation Committee have to be taken in conjunction with the consultative document issued by the Leader of the House and currently under consideration by the Committee. Throughout its consideration of the proposals, the Liaison Committee has used the same criterion—effectiveness: whether the proposals would add to or diminish the effectiveness of parliamentary scrutiny. All Members work on the premise that without accountability there can be no democracy and that—in the way that the House works—without Committees there is no meaningful accountability.
	The Committee especially welcomes pre-legislative scrutiny, which will not only produce a major change in the way in which the House holds the Government to account but will enable it to participate in the evolution of policy before Bills are finally drawn up. That is a dramatic advance and we must take that proposal into account, especially as regards the roll-over of Bills where change is long overdue. It is illogical that a Bill can progress through almost all its stages, but must then be reintroduced in the next Session. The roll-over of Bills will remove the buffers—the time limits that give the business managers the excuse to curtail discussion. Pre-legislative scrutiny and the roll-over facility will considerably enhance the powers of Back Benchers.
	As regards back-up resources, I told members of the Liaison Committee that I could not believe that there had never been any pragmatic analysis or assessment of the resources needed to operate a full Committee system. That is why I suggested that we brought in the National Audit Office to make an objective assessment of the structure and resources that were needed. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House for accepting that suggestion.
	We welcome the review of the powers of Committees to call witnesses, as well as the opportunities offered for Sub-Committees. My right hon. Friend said that Committees would increasingly have to turn their attention to financial scrutiny and many of them may choose to do so by means of Sub-Committees. I have held discussions with almost all the Chairmen and have been most impressed with the open-mindedness of their approach to dealing with the challenges offered by the proposals.
	However, a one-size-fits-all formula does not make sense. The estimates requirement envisaged in the core duties is not relevant for Committees dealing with devolved matters—the Scottish Affairs Committee or the Welsh Affairs Committee. In fairness, we must remember that the core duties as listed are illustrative and that the Liaison Committee is asked to turn them into practicality. I assure the House that it is the wish of the Committee's Chairman that we do that effectively.
	I know that there are doubts about the format of the Committee of Nomination. However, other Members have made the point that it will be more independent than the system that it is replacing. We should give that Committee fair wind to see whether it works effectively. The composition of the Committee will be a matter for the House.
	The Liaison Committee's reservations related mainly to the size of Committees. The membership of many Committees will increase by a third, so I wish to make the point that I made to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House when he appeared before us the other day. The Chairmen of the Committees have no vested interest in keeping the Committees small if Committees will be more effective if they have more members. The Chairman of the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs will, no doubt, describe his experience of trying to run a large Committee and the problems involved with that. My hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) has expressed her opinions and I hope that she will describe the problems that arise with the size of the Committee that she has to handle.
	The Chairmen of the Committees came to an almost unanimous conclusion on the size of the Committees and they did so in pursuit of the fundamental criterion of whether the proposals will enhance or diminish Committees' ability to hold Ministers to account. The Chairmen thought that enforced enlargement would diminish rather than enhance Committees' ability to do that. That is why they took the stand they did.

David Kidney: Will my right hon. Friend consider the wider view and the effectiveness of our democratic institutions? My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House told us that 286 Back Benchers did not serve on any Select Committee. Is that not a dreadful waste of talent? Even if all those Back Benchers were uninterested—I know that that is not the case; many of them want to serve on a Committee—do they not have a democratic duty to contribute? Is that not more important than the ease of managing 15 Committee members rather than 11?

Alan Williams: I think that is wrong. Tails on seats is not the basic requirement. The basic requirement of a democratic system is to hold the Executive firmly to account. Nothing should undermine that. The problem has been the House's inability to hold Governments to account. We must not damage a system that is working just to get people involved in Committees or to give them the opportunity to say that they are members of Committees.

Pete Wishart: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Alan Williams: I am coming to the end of my remarks.
	I have been a Back Bencher for many years and I have been a Front Bencher for many years. Whether I have or have not been serving on Committees, I have never found it particularly difficult to keep myself gainfully occupied as a Member of the House. Perhaps one or two Members should use a little more imagination in their approach to the time they think is wasted at the moment.
	I thank my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House for meeting us this week and for the detailed discussions that we had. I also thank him for responding positively to those discussions and for the flexibility that he has shown in the proposals before us.

Paul Tyler: I join the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Knight) and the Chairman of the Liaison Committee in paying tribute to the leadership that the Leader of the House has given to the Modernisation Committee. I have been on the Committee since its inception at the beginning of the previous Parliament. I can honestly say that the momentum that we now have and the consensus that has now been built up between the parties has not been matched at any other moment in the Committee's short life. That is partly down to the Leader of the House, and it is partly down to the demands that the House has placed on the Committee. We have begun this exercise—or indeed our wider exercise of working out how to make Parliament more effective in scrutinising and holding the Government to account—not because we think that it is a nice idea or a good thing to do or because it gives us a warm feeling but because the House has given us that responsibility. That is why the report is very timely.
	Of course this is a matter for the House. I should say that my colleagues will have a free vote, but I am interested to find that there is basically consensus among my colleagues on most of the issues before us this evening, with one important exception, to which I shall return later.
	The origins of the report were, of course, the events of last summer, as other hon. Members have said.

Barry Sheerman: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Paul Tyler: I have hardly started, but of course I shall give way.

Barry Sheerman: In fairness, those us who have served on the Liaison Committee even for a short time would have to say that the content of the Committee's two reports, much of which is attributable to the now Lord Sheldon, have to be part of the reason why we are discussing this important topic today. I very much admire the work that the Leader of the House has done, but Lord Sheldon was a moving force in making the Liaison Committee a campaigning Committee to change the business of the House.

Paul Tyler: I was just about to make that point. We have built on the work that had already been undertaken, but we would not have done so but for the fact that the Government Whips ignored—let us be honest about it—all the signs that the House had already given that hon. Members were no longer prepared to put up with the incestuous way in which Select Committees were appointed. The point that I want to make is that, if it had not been for last summer's incident, the Liaison Committee's work, frankly, would have gone by the board.
	It has already been said that attempts have been made under previous Governments to nobble Select Committees, to ensure that trouble makers were kept off and trustees were put on, but it would be fair to say that the Conservative party has tended to be more disciplined, or perhaps more devious, than the Labour party was last summer. Whichever it was, the fact of the matter is that all this has now come out into the open.
	I now make my confession: I served on the Committee of Selection for four years. I was, ex officio, a member of that Committee, and I can tell the House—if I am breaking some dreadful convention, I shall no doubt be locked up in the Tower—that most of our meetings took less three minutes. On one occasion, when I was in the Chair as the senior member, a meeting took half a minute. That is not a proper way to take important decisions.
	The right hon. Member for East Yorkshire referred to a previous regime in that Committee when he said that some of the Whips' nominations were turned down. I think that he will agree that they were not nominations to Select Committees; they were nominations to Standing Committees. There is all the difference in the world between serving on a Select Committee and having that responsibility for scrutinising the Government, perhaps for a whole Parliament, and serving on a Committee that considers a specific Bill. So the House should be fully aware that I know of no one—outside the usual channels—who wants to return to that regime.
	We must be very careful this evening that we do not untangle the whole package by pulling it to bits. If we do that, the only winners will be the two main Whips Offices. I have to exclude my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Mr. Stunell)—he is not here at the moment—because my party has been excluded from those discussions all too often in the past.
	The consensus is that we have to make some improvements, but let us recognise the fact that the improvements will be experimental by their very nature. Everything that we do in the House is evolutionary—we can return to the issue if the proposals do not work sufficiently well—but we must make progress tonight; otherwise we shall be in real difficulty.
	I have no great problem with the proposals for the new Committee of Nomination, except to say that the amendments are excessively complicated. We may well have to consider the issue after the next election. If the two Opposition parties, whichever of the current three they may be, were extremely similar in size, perhaps differing by one or two Members, the arithmetic clearly would not work; nor would it work if—let us suppose that this could happen—women made up 60 per cent. of the House after the next general election, as these gender balance arrangements would be obviously nonsensical. Let us be clear: the proposal is for this Parliament, but we must establish the principle that the House makes the decision rather than having it made for it by Government Whips in collusion with the main Opposition party Whips.
	I must say to the Chairman of the Liaison Committee in all sincerity that I am somewhat suspicious of the way in which the Committee approached the issue of numbers. It represents the establishment, the insiders, the people who have got there. As the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) said, we are in danger of wasting good talent in the House if we automatically assume that, just because it is easier to manage 11 people, it is not possible for 15 to do an even better job.

Gwyneth Dunwoody: I wish that the hon. Gentleman would do us the honour of accepting that, if the Committee one is chairing has 17 members, as is frequently the case, it is not fair to any of the members concerned. They do not have the opportunity to ask enough supplementary questions or to pick up a point made by another member, and it simply becomes a question of the Chair trying to get everybody in. That is not how a really effective Committee should work. Unless there is a basis for the objection, under all these rules, I will never sit on another Select Committee. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will accept that what I say about Select Committees is governed by that. It is not possible to chair an investigative Committee effectively if the number of members goes beyond 15.

Paul Tyler: I entirely understand the hon. Lady's point. As she says, however, the problem comes when the number of members goes beyond 15. No one suggests in the document that we are discussing that the number should go beyond 15. That is now entirely a matter for the Committee to decide. I think that I am right that some of the best work that the hon. Lady's Committee did in the last Parliament was done in Sub-Committees. It is important that there are enough members to sit on those Sub-Committees. There is also the issue of full representation—let us not dodge that. We must try to make sure that Select Committees are fully representative of the House as a whole.

David Kidney: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way and for mentioning my contribution, which is why I want to speak. There are enough places on Select Committees for about 40 per cent. of Members of the House. Does the hon. Gentleman recall that, in Canada, nearly all Back Benchers serve on a Committee; in Australia two thirds of Members do so; and in New Zealand 80 per cent. of Members do so? Is not the Committee's recommendation to add 50 Members modest in the light of that information?

Paul Tyler: In my view, it is. If we are to undertake the kind of responsibilities that the Committee wishes to place on Select Committees—the Liaison Committee wishes to do so, and several Chairmen of Select Committees have already taken the point that our list is illustrative and needs to be developed further—there will be a need for more Sub-Committee work. In relation to financial matters—or, dare I say it?—going abroad, it is not necessary for the whole Committee to go to, say, Australia. It is perfectly possible for three or four members, suitably representative, to do a proper job and come back with a report. If that is why the Liaison Committee is apprehensive about an increase in numbers, I suggest that it is in its own hands to exert a little self-discipline.
	The only substantial issue on which I disagree with the majority on the Liaison Committee and on the Modernisation Committee is that we should somehow pick out the Chairmen of Select Committees as worthy of special treatment in terms of additional salary. I am not persuaded of that. I shall return to the point, but I have already heard the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) make the point that we do not have difficulty in recruiting very good people to be Chairmen of Select Committees. The difficulty is in being properly resourced to do that job, not in attracting candidates. The hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) is a good example. He took the ministerial biscuit for a few months, but he decided that he could achieve more by coming back to the House and chairing a very influential Select Committee. We have no difficulty in getting recruits; incidentally, we do have difficulty in getting people to go on the Chairmen's Panel, so perhaps the argument would be more persuasive in that regard.
	Apart from those who are in the Chair or have ministerial office, Members of Parliament are here to serve their constituents. We all have different ways of doing that. I have personal crusades in which I believe passionately that have nothing to do with my constituency. I also have a responsibility to my party. Above all, however, I am here as a Member of Parliament for my constituency and as a member of this national assembly. In that context, I find it difficult to justify singling out Chairs of Select Committees as special people who need to be provided with a new career path. All that Members who sit as Back Benchers on the House of Commons Commission get are knocks; they do not get plaudits or the opportunity to lead a Select Committee. Why should we not pay them? If it comes to it, why should we pay the pairing Whip for the Conservative party when pairing is almost out of the window?

Greg Knight: Can the hon. Gentleman clarify what he is saying? Is he saying that he is against the motion because it proposes payment only for Select Committee Chairmen and that he would support it if it was more widely drawn; or is he against additional payment for any Member of Parliament who is not a Minister?

Paul Tyler: I would have supported the right hon. Gentleman's amendment, because it is fair to consider the issue in the round. Some Members give great service to the House and do not get anything like the kudos or the plaudits attaching to Select Committee Chairs. However, as the right hon. Gentleman's amendment has not been selected, I will vote for the motion that stipulates that we should not pay more to Chairs of Select Committees.
	On the controversial amendments, I believe that an illustrative list is helpful, as the Chairman of the Liaison Committee acknowledged. I hope that the Chairman of the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry), will not press his amendment to a vote.
	On the amendments to add new Members to the Committee of Nomination, I have misgivings about the format of the arrangements. The additional newer members would be nominated not by the parties, but by their Chairs. That is a new form of patronage which the Modernisation Committee tried to avoid. I think that the suggestion is a little incestuous and I would have preferred to stick with the original proposal of the Modernisation Committee.
	On those Members who are lucky enough to be elected Chairs of Select Committees, the amendment tabled by the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Knight) is logical. Eight years or two Parliaments, whichever is the longer, gives someone a good run at the job. There are plenty of volunteers to take over. On the two-Parliament rule, however, I was briefly in the House in 1974 with a small majority, which makes a nonsense of that suggestion.
	The exclusion of the Chairs of the Public Accounts Committee, the Environmental Audit Committee, the Human Rights Committee and, no doubt, others from the interrogation of the Prime Minister or, indeed, anyone else in such circumstances, would be illogical, so I oppose the amendment to motion 10, dealing with the Liaison Committee.
	The proposals offer a one-off opportunity to give new strength to the Select Committee system. The Committees have been in place for a long time and ways in which they can improve their performance have evolved, especially with regard to their accountability to the House. What we have not done is to analyse carefully the best way to ensure that they are representative of the House. That is why we must take the opportunity for Back Benchers in particular, of all parties, to regain control.
	There is, of course, an obligation within parties to ensure that a proper democratic procedure is followed for the nominations to the Committee of Nomination. There is also an obligation on those who think that the system is not working adequately to use the Committee of Nomination.

Stephen McCabe: If the essence of the Nomination Committee is that it must decide whether the right people have been nominated and make changes if it does not like the party choices, why is there any obligation on parties to ensure that the right people are chosen? The reality is that we are wresting power not only from the Whips but from Back Benchers, and giving it to a Committee of seven people who will decide for the rest of us.

Paul Tyler: No, I am bound to say that I think that the hon. Gentleman has not read carefully how the procedure will work. I understand his concern, but this procedure will be conducted very much within the parties. I cannot speak for his party but I can speak for mine, and it is incredibly democratic—some of my colleagues think that it is far too democratic. If the nomination procedure does not fulfil all the expectations of individual members of my party in this House, there will soon be a revolution.

Stephen McCabe: Will the hon. Gentleman give way again?

Paul Tyler: No, not again. I accept that the procedure places a great obligation on the party and on the Committee of Nomination. As I pointed out in discussions on the proposals in the Modernisation Committee, the additions to Committees will be easy enough; it is the subtractions that will cause difficulty. We can all imagine circumstances in which the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) makes a wonderful case for being on a particular Committee, but when the Committee of Nomination is asked to remove somebody to make a space for him, that may cause some difficulty.

Tom Clarke: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Paul Tyler: No, I am about to complete my speech and other Members want to speak.
	We can put the system on trial for this Parliament, and I believe that it will prove to be worthy of that test. It will fulfil Members' expectations far better than does the Committee of Selection from which we have suffered in the past. Obviously, an important responsibility will be placed on individual Members, on their parties, on the Committee of Nomination and indeed on the House, because as has been said several times, in the end the recommendations will return to the House, and I have not the slightest doubt, after the episode last summer, that if the House feels that a new oligarchy has taken over from the Whips which is equally under the thumb of the party managers, it will rebel. This is the best possible chance to break out of that stranglehold. As I confessed earlier, I am a former member not of the usual channels but of the unusual channels, and I am convinced that they cannot do this job properly.

Tony Lloyd: I echo the tributes that have already been paid to the work of the Modernisation Committee and to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House. Today we have an opportunity to reinvigorate the Select Committee process and to re-establish its primacy in the role of non-partisan scrutiny of the Executive, which is fundamental in a free society and a democratic system. The Select Committees have performed that role with some weaknesses.
	I remember many years ago serving on the Health Committee, chaired by the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton). I am not sure how he slipped through the previous system.

Tom Clarke: Will my hon. Friend give way on that point?

Tony Lloyd: On the point about the hon. Member for Macclesfield? Yes, of course.

Tom Clarke: My hon. Friend is the essence of courtesy, so I am not surprised that he gives way. I recall that when I was a member of the Health Committee, there was an attempt to prevent the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) from chairing the Committee. In fact, he was an excellent Chairman. The result was that the Whips removed him from the Committee. If we are to have a Committee of Nomination to make the final decision, as against what I thought the House had decided last time round, how can such abuses be prevented?

Tony Lloyd: I, too, recall the role played by the hon. Member for Macclesfield, although I do not want this to turn into his obituary. I must point out that it is necessary for Select Committees to have an independent voice and for Chairmen to command respect in the Committee.
	My starting principle is that Committee membership is not something casually to be given away. It is important that the membership is of the highest possible quality. Members of Committees must be determined to fulfil the role of independent scrutiny of the Government of the day, without fear or favour, irrespective of their party. That is a difficult challenge for the Government. It was difficult for the previous Government, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge and Chryston (Mr. Clarke) points out that at that time there were successful attempts to nobble the hon. Member for Macclesfield. That was wrong, and it would be equally wrong if the present Government, whom of course I support, sought to nobble the present Select Committee system.
	We know that if Select Committees are to command respect, they must be seen to be independent. Whatever the role of the Whips and the perception of the use of Select Committee places for patronage in the past, the fact that such accusations can be made and believed more widely is a good reason to ensure that this Parliament can say that it is clear of that charge. That is why, in general terms, I endorse the Modernisation Committee's approach of having an independent Committee of Nomination, which will command respect in all parts of the House.
	Last year, the House did itself no favours in the row about my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, East (Donald Anderson). Parliament got it right in the end when it insisted that they should be reinstated to their Committees. I concede to Opposition Members that Parliament worked in that case.
	I strongly agree with the Modernisation Committee that the whole Chamber cannot be responsible for the process of nomination; there needs to be an intermediate process. On a point similar to that made by the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler), the parliamentary Labour party now has a procedure that guarantees that the party as a whole, with all its influences—from time to time including, dare I say it, pressure from the Whips Office—decides on the names going forward on behalf of Labour Members. I trust that that will also apply to the Conservative party, although I am not certain. Perhaps Opposition Members will make that clear later.
	It is important that there is a sense of independence. We accept that the Government have an in-built majority on Select Committees, but those members of the Committee must be seen to command the respect of their own parliamentary party. The process established by the parliamentary Labour party ensures that that is the case. However, we need a tiebreaker mechanism—the court of appeal that has been referred to. That court of appeal needs to be independent; the present system is not, and can no longer command respect. The Modernisation Committee has suggested a sensible step in the right direction. I am sure that Parliament could have come up with many variations on the proposals, and it could still do so if these do not work.
	I am grateful to the Leader of the House for considering the amendments in my name and that in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Mr. Bryant). The criticism of the proposed Committee of Nomination is that it would seem to put power and control into the hands of the old lags, and there is a danger that they would view only those of a similar generation as suitable for inclusion in the Select Committee process. There is considerable merit in trying to recognise the contribution of hon. Members with fewer years on these Benches. Some people make contributions of enormous worth almost on entry into Parliament, while others take a little longer. There is no reason why the Committee of Nomination should not recognise the talent of recently elected Members.

Helen Jackson: I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and am sorry for being unavoidably late. Does he accept that every Member of Parliament, including those who do not serve on Select Committees, can act as an effective scrutineer of the Executive through activities in Westminster Hall, introducing ten-minute Bills, tabling parliamentary questions and building all-party groups? The House should recognise that every Member has a role to play and we should not be too preoccupied with the role of Select Committees in the scrutiny process.

Tony Lloyd: My hon. Friend makes an intelligent and valuable point which certainly commands support among Labour Members. We ought to strengthen Parliament's role in scrutinising the Executive. Select Committees are an important part, but not the only part, of that process. We should not seek to diminish their role, because they are often at the cutting edge of scrutiny, at least of Departments. We should therefore try to maintain and even increase their influence. My amendments make common-sense proposals and the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda is also sensible, because it allows for the fact that all Members, including newly elected ones, may make a contribution. If a Committee membership is rolled over a Parliament, it would be illogical to bar Members with several years' experience. Together, the amendments would greatly improve the Committee of Nomination, and I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House for endorsing their spirit and practical effect.
	Briefly, on the role of Committee Chairmen and the question of payment, I was intrigued by the suggestion of my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) that we engage in economic bargaining to attract the best people to serve as members and Chairmen of Select Committees. I do not espouse that philosophy in other walks of life, so I am not sure that I should espouse it in the House. Indeed, if we reversed the argument and said that ministerial office was open to competitive bidding—we would take on as Ministers people prepared to undercut others—there would be no shortage of candidates and people who wield the knife behind their colleagues' backs would continue to do so. Members who join the Government or Opposition Front Bench do not do so for the salary. Similarly, some extraordinarily good Select Committee Chairmen have taken on the role with no thought whatever of economic reward. I shall therefore resist my hon. Friend's proposal unless I hear a more convincing argument about the money.

Eric Forth: The hon. Gentleman has not mentioned them, but I am sure that he is aware of at least two other aspects of the argument, including, first, the issue of a career structure or path. I am sure that I do not need to point out that many people think that it is important to try to identify a distinctive career path other than the ministerial one. Secondly, the Modernisation Committee may be aiming at the wrong target: the Chairmen's Panel might be a much better candidate if we wish to acknowledge largely unsung and unseen heavy additional responsibilities and time commitments in the House, as its members undertake such duties for no extra pay.

Tony Lloyd: As someone who, for reasons I do not fully understand, strayed from his initial career path, I agree that there are more ways of serving our constituents than climbing the ministerial ladder. If we are deluded into thinking that only by creating special payments can we introduce an alternative career path, we shall structure Parliament in an undesirable way. It is nonsense to suggest that a good MP is a good amateur. Nowadays, that is not an accolade, but we certainly have many demands on our time and are asked to perform a range of duties. We ought to encourage involvement in all those duties, and chairing a Select Committee is an important part of that. We should thank colleagues for undertaking that role but, on balance, it does not need financial reward.
	I have some sympathy with the suggestion that we may be looking at the wrong group of people. I am not sure whether I am comfortable with special payments for extra work, as we could get into a work measurement system; after my advice bureau on a Saturday morning, I would produce, for fear that my bonus payments would be reduced, a time sheet to demonstrate that my commitment was as great as anybody else's. I therefore need further persuasion that the concept of special payment in the parliamentary system has genuine merit.
	I know that many hon. Members want to contribute to our important debate, so I shall conclude. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Helen Jackson) said, parliamentary scrutiny of the Executive is fundamental: it is the reason why we are here. The Select Committees are at the cutting edge of scrutiny, so we have got to make them work. The Modernisation Committee report is a serious contribution to achieving that, and those concerned deserve congratulations.

Nicholas Winterton: I am pleased to contribute to our debate. I pay tribute to the Leader of the House for his leadership of the Modernisation Committee in this Parliament. He always seeks to achieve consensus, which is helpful in dealing with the matters under consideration. It is also beneficial that Members on both sides of the House are singing from the same hymn sheet and supporting the motions that he has included on the Order Paper.
	I am wearing several hats in this debate. Not only am I a member of the Modernisation Committee but, because of my chairmanship of the Procedure Committee, I serve on the Liaison Committee, and have worked closely with its Chairman, the right hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams). I commend him again for his ground-breaking initiatives that will be of immense benefit to the House, both in holding the Government of the day to account and scrutinising legislation and Government policy. I am referring in particular to the Prime Minister's acceptance of an unwritten request, albeit one clearly in the offing, to appear before what may be described as the Chairmen's select committee—the Liaison Committee.
	The report is long overdue. My name has been mentioned in our debate several times, but I do not wear the same rose-coloured spectacles as my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Knight) or my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Mr. Taylor). I remind the House that both my colleagues have been members of the mafia, meaning the Whips Office or the usual channels, as they are affectionately known. I wanted to take the appointment of members of Select Committees out of the hands of the Whips long before my experience in 1992.
	I remind the House, especially my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire, that the Conservative Whips Office, in connivance with the then Chairman of the Committee of Selection, said that there was a rule that a Conservative Member should not serve on a Select Committee for more than three Parliaments. Of course, they said so to prevent my reappointment, but that dragged two distinguished Members—Sir John Wheeler and Terence Higgins—into the same net, which caused a great deal of unhappiness.
	One such incident is more than enough, which is why I share the Government view that we need a new system of appointment. I therefore warmly welcome, as a package, the motions before us today. I shall support a majority of the motions on which the House is to vote. I strongly support the original motion relating to the Committee of Nomination but, like the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler), I have some reservations about the amendment proposed by the hon. Members for Manchester, Central (Mr. Lloyd) and for Rhondda (Mr. Bryant). That adds broader membership in certain respects, but overall it does not help the nominations panel. I understand why it has been tabled and I shall not vote against it.
	The Leader of the House said that he would accept the amendments and I will go along with that, as I believe that they are part of a package. We need that package, so I shall throw my support behind it. I believe that it is good for the House and that, with no disrespect to the current Chairman of the Committee of Selection, the nominations panel will do a good job of ensuring that the right people, with experience and all the necessary commitment, which I believe is vital to an active member of a Select Committee, are appointed.

Chris Bryant: I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way, despite the fact that he does not accept the premise of my amendment. He has referred several times to experience. I tabled my amendment because in the original motion setting up the Committee of Nomination, there seemed to be an overvaluing of experience only in the House. I therefore tabled a permissive amendment.

Nicholas Winterton: The hon. Gentleman makes a point. I said that I would not oppose the amendments to the original motion that have been accepted by the Leader of the House. However, having been in the House for quite a long time, although as a Back Bencher for all those 31 years in this place, I believe that it is necessary for the members of the Committee of Nomination to know the Members when appointments to Select Committees are made.
	I accept that I may be influenced by my own experience. I must tell the hon. Member for Rhondda that when I entered the House, it was very rare indeed for Members to be appointed to a Select Committee in their first term in the House. It was fairly rare even in the second term of office. Now it is much more commonplace. That is one of the reasons why, after some consideration, I have decided to support the motion, as amended.
	I accept that the composition of the House has changed dramatically, and I am referring not just to the huge number of new Members who arrived in 1997 and the fairly substantial number who arrived in 2001. I say to the hon. Ladies on the Labour Benches that there has been a fairly substantial shift in gender balance in the House, and it is appropriate to take account of those changes. For that reason, I am prepared to support the Leader of my House—or rather, the House, although after all the years that I have been here, it is almost becoming my house.
	I have been reading the debate that took place in 1992, when I had the experience to which I referred. Some very distinguished Members took part. The right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) intervened and made it clear that in his view, it was wrong for members of Select Committees to be appointed, as it were, at the whim of the Whips. That is how it was done then. Since then the Labour party has dramatically changed the way in which it puts forward the names of Labour Members for appointment to Select Committees. My party has not done that, but there is considerable discussion within the parliamentary party. Individual Members will be able to communicate with the Committee of Nomination and to put their own name forward, if they wish. Of course, the Whips will put forward, on behalf of the Labour party and the Back-Bench Labour party, the official Labour nominations.
	In the 1992 debate, the right hon. Member for Birkenhead said:
	"More important issues are at stake, however. Although the amendments are linked to certain names, they are not about the hon. Member for Macclesfield. His name features, but we are dealing with more important questions than his fate. I hope that hon. Members will vote not on the basis of whether the hon. Gentleman is liked or disliked, popular or unpopular, but on the basis of the debate that they will have heard about the role of Select Committees and their development in our constitution."
	That is extremely important.
	Similarly, during that debate, the then hon. Member for Worthing, now Lord Higgins in another place, said:
	"It is important that these matters should not be handled in such a way"—
	he was referring to what had happened in 1992. He continued:
	"Instead, they should be dealt with on an all-party basis. I hope that, in the light of the debate, we shall consider what should best be done in future. At present, it is wrong to suggest that there is a rule which has determined decisions. As I have said, these matters should not be handled in such a way."
	The hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood), who is present, also intervened in that debate and said:
	"a ludicrous claim has been made that a rule exists when it does not".—[Official Report, 13 July 1992; Vol. 211, c. 918-23.]
	To me, it is wrong that we should perpetuate what happened on that occasion.
	I see the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mr. Fisher) in his place. I pay tribute to the work that he has done, with many colleagues from all parts of the House, in Parliament First—a group which, I think, wants to re-establish the sovereignty and integrity of the House. I know that he strongly supported the report produced in the last Parliament. There were in fact two reports, but I am referring to the better known one from the Liaison Committee, "Shifting the Balance"—that is, from the Executive back to Parliament.
	Having stated that I intend to support the major recommendations on which we will decide tonight, I turn to the question of payment. I suppose that I would be a beneficiary, whatever formula is adopted, so it is appropriate to declare that. I have the pleasure of being a member of the Chairmen's Panel.
	If we are to encourage the most able people to participate in matters relating to the House, not merely to seek to become Ministers and to do all that that requires, we need an alternative career structure. Here I depart from the views expressed by the hon. Member for Manchester, Central. The payment of Chairmen of Select Committees and perhaps, in due course, additional remuneration for those who spend considerable amounts of time chairing Standing Committees, Westminster Hall and occasionally the House would recognise such service to the House. That service prevents hon. Members from undertaking other tasks and jobs, including other jobs outside the House, from which they could obtain additional remuneration. Bearing it in mind that people's final pensions are based on their salaries, there is good reason to consider the matter seriously.
	The Leader of the House has acted responsibly. He has not put a firm proposal before the House. He has presented the House with options, so that on a free vote the House can indicate what it thinks and reach a decision. I hope that the House will decide that there will be remuneration, and the matter can then be submitted to the Review Body on Senior Salaries.
	In my view, this is a very important debate. As I said, I wish that it had taken place earlier. We need to restore the integrity of this place and to give hon. Members who are committed to this House and its institutions the opportunity to do a good job.
	I should like to refer to one other matter: the core tasks that were a major feature of the speech of the Leader of the House. I say to hon. Members that those tasks are very important if Select Committees are to do the job that they are there to do. To my mind, the inquiries undertaken by the Procedure Committee, of which I am Chairman, show that the House's scrutiny of estimates and expenditure is inadequate. Until we take those tasks seriously, we will not be able to hold the Government of the day to account as I believe we should.
	Once again, this is a very important debate and I congratulate the Leader of the House on all the work that he has done and the leadership that he has provided. I also congratulate all the members of the Modernisation Committee, who have participated fully to a man and woman in the many lengthy sittings that we have had. To say that we arrived at our conclusions lightly and without proper consideration would be to deny the very hard work that has been put in by every man and woman who serves on the Committee.
	I believe that we would do well for this House and its future by voting for the recommendations.

Tony Wright: I should like to be brief. I want to say a word about the Prime Minister and then to use that word to make a larger point.
	The word about the Prime Minister is as follows. The Select Committee system in its modern form was developed 20 years ago, and as has rightly been pointed out, that was only the latest instalment—although it was an important one—in the operation of Select Committees. There was a gap in that system, and that gap was the Prime Minister—a point that was put to me forcefully on many occasions by the great Professor Peter Hennessy, who was responsible for persuading John Major when he was Prime Minister to publish the ministerial code, as it became. Indeed, I sometimes think that Peter Hennessy is the only thing approximating to a constitution that this country has. He forcefully suggested to me that the gap had to be remedied.
	We on the Public Administration Committee began to try to provide that remedy. I began a correspondence with the Prime Minister—it has been published in our reports—in which I tried to persuade him that it would be right for him to account directly to the House just as a departmental Minister would. We tried a number of stratagems and identified certain matters for which only he was responsible, pointing out that if he did not account for them, nobody could. The ministerial code was the obvious example, but as No. 10 began to expand and new Departments began to arrive, many people in government were responsible only to the Prime Minister and could be accountable to the House only through him.
	When I made those points in our correspondence, the Prime Minister would reply that all the conventions were against what was proposed. I was told that Prime Ministers did not do that sort of thing and did not come to the House of Commons to appear before Select Committees. Of course, that was wrong, as Prime Ministers used to do so. The subsequent convention has developed only since the war. Indeed, it really began only because when the new Select Committee system started after 1979, Mrs. Thatcher did not want to appear before the Defence Committee in the Westland inquiry. If one scratches a convention, one will always find expediency. On consideration, the great weight of convention seemed to disappear. Ramsay MacDonald appeared before a Select Committee, as did Neville Chamberlain. What this House has forgotten are the powers that it used to have.
	When I had exhausted my correspondence with the Prime Minister on one front, I went to the Liaison Committee and asked why we did not invite the Prime Minister to come to the House annually to account for the Government's annual report. Again, the same reply came back, saying that Prime Ministers did not do that sort of thing and that all the conventions were against it. Of course, the little tailspin was the removal of the annual report itself.
	Against that background, let us notch up the achievement for this House in the Prime Minister's agreement to come and give an account to Select Committees of what he does in terms of his own responsibilities and those of government as a whole. However, in doing so, let us also be aware of the wider significance of that victory, which is that the House is not going into new territory, but reclaiming territory that it used to occupy.
	I put it to the House that that is the fundamental point. This House used to be more powerful than it is now. The story of the past century is of this House losing power to the Executive. Either we as a House of Commons want to reclaim some of that power or we do not. When we talk about modernising Parliament, I get rather uneasy, as modernisation can mean two different things. It can mean allowing the Executive to have an easier life and to get their business through in a more straightforward way, as well as tidying up some of the untidy bits of how this House operates, including things that I like, such as ensuring that we get home earlier at night. Those are important matters, but let us not believe for a second that they go to the heart of the constitutional issue, which is that there has been a drift of power away from Parliament and towards the Executive as party discipline has tightened in the past century or so.
	We have to decide either that that is how politics now is, play our part in that system, become its slavish adherents in one way or another and find eloquent ways of justifying it, or that that shift has to be reversed. That is the point about the report "Shifting the Balance".

David Winnick: Did not Parliament reclaim the ground because the parliamentary Labour party refused to accept the recommendation that two of our colleagues who had served as Select Committee Chairmen should not be reappointed? Is it not because the parliamentary party made it perfectly clear in the Chamber that we were not willing to put up with that and voted against it that the recommendation is before us today?

Tony Wright: Indeed. I am grateful for that observation, as those events showed that this institution had to reach a certain point before it became clear to everyone that we could go no further down that road. We must be honest with ourselves about that and hope that people outside are not listening. The fact is that we had to decide whether we wanted our instruments of scrutiny, the Select Committees, to be owned by this House or by the Executive. That was the choice that was put to the House by the Liaison Committee in its report. It was a very clear choice as to whether we wanted to continue with a system in which the Chairmen of Select Committees were selected by the Minister whose Department they were supposed to be scrutinise. We had to decide whether those appointments were the prizes of patronage or whether the Chairmen were to act as the instruments of scrutiny and independence on the House's behalf.

Eric Forth: On that theme, is the hon. Gentleman satisfied that a system in which Select Committees always have a majority of Government Members is necessarily the best way of providing for effective parliamentary scrutiny?

Tony Wright: I am not sure that I am as troubled by that as the right hon. Gentleman would like me to be. Having had the experience of chairing a Select Committee, I find that it is possible, almost like an oasis inside this institution, to work on a different cross-party basis, whereby some of the old antagonisms that exist in this Chamber begin to slide away. That is why many of us give such attention to Select Committees—we know that they offer a way of working and of dealing with issues that differs from the knockabout, custard pie approach that we take in here.

Alex Salmond: Is not the hon. Gentleman overlooking the fact that his chairmanship of a Select Committee is by virtue of his membership of the parliamentary Labour party? Moreover, in his admirable efforts to close the gap of prime ministerial accountability through the Liaison Committee, is not he ignoring the fact that of 27 members of minority parties in this House, not a single one chairs a Select Committee, and they will therefore have no access to the welcome system of prime ministerial accountability that he has helped to introduce? Does he see that as an anomaly?

Tony Wright: If the hon. Gentleman does not mind, I do not want to revisit the question of minority party representation, because I hope that that will be helped by the new arrangements.
	On his first point, perhaps one should not confess too much on these occasions, but when I expressed an interest in chairing a Select Committee instead of being a Parliamentary Private Secretary to a Cabinet Minister, I was told—I had better not say by whom—that that would not be tolerated by the Whips, that it would not be acceptable to No. 10, and that I should forget all about it. Change came about only because members of that Select Committee said, not that they particularly wanted me, but that they would not have someone foisted upon them. Unless we build independence into the system, I am afraid that we shall have the continuation of the system that we know exists now. To echo the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (David Winnick), that system required the turning of the worm. We had reached a point beyond which we could not continue any longer. When one looks back at the history of Select Committees, one sees the way in which they were once able to send for persons and papers and properly to interrogate the Executive through Ministers, and it becomes clear that they have to relearn those techniques. We are not about to go somewhere that we have never been before—we are reclaiming a small bit of territory that we should never have lost.
	As Select Committees, we have much more to do. We have not yet begun to get hold of the real centres of power outside this House. If we really want the House and the Committee system to be the apex of accountability, we must get hold of all those regulators who now determine so much about real life in this country. We must get hold of areas that we have hardly begun to get hold of if we want to put this place at the centre of the nation's affairs again.

Chris Bryant: Some things have changed over the past 100 years, not least the advent of television, which means that when the Prime Minister appears before the Liaison Committee of 34 members the whole country will see exactly what the establishment of the House of Commons looks like. Is my hon. Friend worried that a Committee of 34 will find it difficult to undertake that act of scrutiny, and does he agree that it would be better done by a smaller Committee?

Tony Wright: I do indeed share that view. I have expressed it in the relevant quarters, and I hope that the issue will be resolved. If we get it right, it will do the House of Commons some good.
	There is a mismatch between how we do politics in here and how the country expects politics to be done. Unless we can make these arrangements come together, the reputation and status of this House will not only not be restored, but decline further. I have been pessimistic on this front over the past 10 years, and this is the first time that I can say with honesty that we may just have turned the corner. Under the leadership of the Leader of the House, the House may have begun to understand that we can no longer go on as we have in the past.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: It is generous of the hon. Gentleman to give way. As I will not be able to speak in the debate, I want to return him to the point made by my right hon. Friend the shadow Leader of the House about the illogicality of his position. The hon. Gentleman is worried about the independence of the Chairman, but he should also be worried about the independence of the entire Committee. It is not only the inquisition of Ministers that goes on in a Committee, but the line-by-line scrutiny of reports. If the Government of the day has a majority on that Committee, it is likely that the end character and content of such reports will be biased towards the Government.

Tony Wright: I think that I dealt with that point. It is simply not my experience that Select Committees work like that. Indeed, one of the joys of Select Committees is that they do not.
	This is the kind of modernisation that deserves the name. It is the kind of modernisation that begins to shift the balance and to point the House in the right direction. I just hope—if I can put it this way—that the dark forces that inhabit this place do not want to prevent this package of reforms from continuing. It is a package—all the bits connect. If we put them together we can begin to see a future for this House that connects us to politics as it should be and to what people outside expect of us. If we do not get it right this time, I am afraid that this House may fall further in public affection and repute.

David Curry: I very much welcome the spirit of the Modernisation Committee's report and largely accept its conclusions. It is particularly important because, over the years, as we must all be aware, scrutiny has migrated from this Chamber, which has become largely theatre. If scrutiny is to exist, it must be conducted elsewhere in the institution.
	I welcome the initiative of the Leader of the House. I remember sitting in the Liaison Committee under his predecessor thinking that a fairly Stalinist attitude was being displayed towards us, so I welcome the glasnost that he has brought to the debate. I shall not ask him to react to that, because it would break the solidarity that he would wish to express with his predecessor.
	I have reservations on three matters, some of which the Leader of the House has partly dealt with: first, the notion of a separate Back-Bench career path; secondly, the core tasks; and, thirdly, the size of the Committee.
	Like most of my colleagues, I cannot say that I get terribly excited about the way in which Members of Parliament are chosen for Select Committees. I served on and chaired the Select Committee on Agriculture and now chair the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. I have never had the feeling that my colleagues are being nobbled, and I have spent part of my time trying to tone down Labour Members' hostile comments about their own Government. I cannot get quite as exercised about that issue as many people do.
	I do, however, become exercised about the very concept of the separate career path because it gives rise to one or two problems, the first of which is the fact that we are trying to graft some of the characteristics of Congress on to a parliamentary system. The United States has powerful congressional committees because of the principle of the separation of powers. Those committees can approve nominations, generate and hone legislation and bargain with the Executive. We can do none of those things, and we should not pretend that we can assimilate them into the concept of Parliament and Government in this House. There may be a case for taking the Executive out of the House. In the context of longer-term evolution, it might be desirable to move more entirely towards a congressional habit of mind in the interests of proper scrutiny—especially given the problems identified by the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Tony Wright) as regards the Executive and presidential forms of government that we have now. However, that is not the proposition before us, and I would not wish to overplay its role or the expectations within it.
	On paid Chairmen, there is a balance in this place, and its political role could be compromised if Select Committee Chairmen, and they alone, were chosen for receipt of a particular bonus. I hope that my Front Benchers will not take this as a plea for a job, but members of the shadow Cabinet have an infinitely more difficult role than any Select Committee Chairman. Getting the information to hold the Government to account on the basis of the resources available to an Opposition demands an enormous commitment of time and energy. Frankly, it is a much more demanding role than that which I fulfil. If we give Select Committee Chairmen additional money but ask hon. Members to choose between doing the hewing of wood and drawing of water on the Front Bench and becoming a grandee through running a Select Committee—I went from being a Back Bencher to a grandee without an intermediate stage—a serious dilemma will arise.
	I also have some reservations about the proposed collegiate nature of Select Committees. I chair a Committee of 17 members, and I look forward to reducing its membership to 15, if the rules permit that. However, the Committee is friendly and largely based on trust—taking people's word and trying to work together. I am worried about what will happen if we introduce gentlemen and players into that system.
	If the matter goes before the Review Body on Senior Salaries, I hope that it will be examined in the wider context of hon. Members' motivation. Frankly, an informed, energetic Opposition constitutes the best form of scrutiny that a parliamentary system can provide.
	I have some doubts about core tasks. However, in the light of the reassurances that the Leader of the House gave, I shall not press my amendment.
	The remit of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee runs from global warming to tuberculosis in cattle, nuclear waste to fisheries management, BSE to bathing beaches and CAP reform to Covent Garden—a heavy remit. We have to deal with five Ministers; six agencies, including the Rural Payments Agency, which pays out billions of pounds in CAP support; 20 executive quangos, including the Environment Agency, English Nature and the Countryside Commission to list only some of the biggest; 31 advisory quangos; two public corporations; five tribunals, and seven other advisory bodies. We can commit ourselves to interrogate them all in a Parliament, but if we do that we set ourselves a series of possibly fruitless tasks that will act as a deterrent to many hon. Members who want to serve on the Committee.
	In the statement on House of Lords reform yesterday, the Leader of the House said that we had to start by thinking about what hon. Members want the House of Lords to do. What do we want a Select Committee to do? Let us begin with the tasks. There are three basic jobs. First, Select Committees provide a forum for debating issues of immediate importance when Parliament must be capable of responding quickly to events but cannot provide the detailed scrutiny anywhere else. In Select Committees, detailed and, if necessary, prolonged interrogation can take place. They also have the power to summon witnesses. The Chairman of the Select Committee on Education and Skills cited the example of individual learning accounts. I could cite a series of cases from my Committee—for example, flooding. We had to respond to that because of public expectation that Parliament is capable of dealing with something that goes bump in the night.
	Secondly, we need to scrutinise policy, including quangos, continually. On the whole, shorter, sharper reports that maintain their relevance are better than long, discursive reports. However, the subject of genetically modified foods continues to be considered in the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee. The same applies to organic food, nuclear waste and flood defence. We should keep reverting to and niggling at some subjects. That is the key; we must revert to issues time and again, if only for one-day sessions, and ascertain developments since we last met, such as the Government's response and whether anything in the firmament has changed. That takes time, energy and application, including much staff time. The shorter the reports, and the greater their number, the greater the demands on staff time.
	Select Committees must provide a forum for ideas. I would have called that blue sky thinking if Lord Birt and the Prime Minister had not given the expression such a bad name. Governments come into office with a litany of new ideas that they have culled from think tanks and universities, and are good at applying them in their first years. Governments' abiding problem is the continuing ability to assimilate new ideas rather than simply sticking to their agendas. Part of the role of Select Committees is to bring ideas together where they can be ventilated and, if necessary, conflict to create a dialectic. That can be used to tackle the way in which the country is governed.
	I do not want to make the tasks so prescriptive that that function cannot continue. They must not exclude free-range thinking or lay down methodologies; even seeing all the relevant Ministers in the course of a Parliament is a good idea, but not as a mechanistic obligation. I fear that that will prove a disincentive to Committee members.
	We must also bear in mind the capacity to deliver. My Committee does not have permanent Sub-Committees. We have several Sub-Committees of short duration that are chaired by different members so that everyone has an opportunity to chair and share the load. The main Committee is about to embark on an inquiry entitled, "What the blazes is DEFRA for?" Once we have worked that out, we will consider whether it is engineered to do the job. The purpose of the Department is central, by any definition of core tasks. We also currently have two Sub-Committees. That is a great burden on members' time and entails an enormous amount of work by the staff. If we want the Committees to be successful, the reports must be published quickly. There is no point in waiting three weeks for the end of a Sub-Committee before examining proposals.
	If I may make a special plea, the remuneration that we offer specialist advisers is not always sufficient to get the quality of people that we want. We tend to get academics and those for whom advising a Select Committee will look good on a CV, but not people from the private sector, who want more effective consultancy rates.
	The Leader of the House and other colleagues said that Select Committees would sit for longer and have many Sub-Committees. If so, perhaps we should consider the other commitments that Members of Parliament make, which we have recently multiplied. For example, we have invented longer sittings in Westminster Hall. I consistently lose members of my Committee because they have a debate in Westminster Hall or want to take part in one. We want to serve on Standing Committees that consider Bills. I do not want to divorce myself from the normal legislative process at the heart of Parliament. I want to be able to serve on a Bill Committee. However, that means that Select Committees lose Members who are recruited for Bill Committees.
	The changed hours that are envisaged for the Chamber will create a greater clash between time in the Chamber and that spent Upstairs. The same core of Members usually do the lion's share of the work on Sub- Committees. If we are to multiply them and their functions, we must review some of the other demands, including those that the Chamber imposes on us.
	I am grateful for the fact that the Committees will have a chance to determine their size—within limits. I am not sure about the relevance for a Committee such as mine, which already has 17 members. Some colleagues argue that it is better to have more members and give them all a chance, and that that will mean that the jobs are done better. However, the Committee's essential role is scrutiny. We can scrutinise only if we can pursue lines of argument as they arise—if the ferrets can be sent after the rabbits when they appear, to use a metaphor that will appeal to the Leader of the House.
	When matters crop up in questioning, they must be pursued. I do not like the formalistic approach to a Committee, whereby all members have an allocation of questions that they ask in turn. I believe in a more informal arrangement that allows people to butt in. However, that must be effective. A large Committee will not have the power to do the job that it is allowed to do. There is therefore conflict and tension between effective scrutiny and the ability to cover the waterfront or to satisfy everyone's aspirations. In that case, we must decide what matters most; in our case, it is the ability to scrutinise.
	I am not especially worried about selection methods. I find that the problem is attendance rather than nobbling. There are always difficulties with attendance. That is apparent if one examines the attendance lists. A Committee of the whole House has the same problems because of the enormous demands on hon. Members' time.
	I make one request to the Leader of the House. It is rare for a Minister to refuse to appear before a Select Committee, but it is common for a Minister to claim that it is difficult to find a suitable date. We do not want to make matters difficult for Ministers, who have commitments in the Council of Ministers or international forums. However, I should like it to be a general rule of ministerial conduct or performance that a summons to a Select Committee, which will always be couched in courteous terms—the Select Committee exists to have a conversation more than anything else to glean information from people—should be tantamount to speaking in a debate in the House. That would save us all a great deal of unnecessary hassle.
	The report on which we shall vote tonight is extremely constructive. I agree with the concept that the House is merely reclaiming some of its traditional powers. We still have a long way to go, but I cannot see a better way of doing this than by reinforcing the powers of the scrutiny Select Committees. Let us not, however, be naive and assume that there is a "with one bound Jack was free" solution. We must be careful that, in altering this particular piece of the mechanism, we do not cause a dislocation across the functioning of the House that we would live to regret.

Several hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Many Members are seeking to catch my eye. I appeal for shorter speeches so that as many of them as possible can contribute.

Joan Ruddock: I have been in the House for 15 years and I regret to say that, during that time, apart from the ending of all-night sittings, there have been very few serious attempts at modernisation. I contrast that with the jobs that I have had outside the House, which never lasted more than seven years, and usually only about three. During that time, when I ran whole departments or organisations, there was always massive change. We always wanted to develop and move on. My frustration in this place, having been here for 15 years and seen so little change, has, therefore, been acute.
	That has changed only since my joining my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House on the Modernisation Committee. I pay tribute to him and to his enormous vision, energy and commitment in pursuing the modernisation of this institution. We are expecting to embark on a huge agenda, as was made clear in the memorandum that he provided on a previous occasion. Today, we are tackling only a very small part of that agenda.
	I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Tony Wright) on his excellent speech today, in which he demonstrated clearly just how modest these proposals are. Despite that, the weight of tradition in this place, and some vested interests, have already led to the watering down of some of the proposals in our report, resulting in the proposals that we shall vote on tonight.
	The first message that I have for my colleagues is: "If you are a moderniser, and if you want this process to continue, vote for the whole package that has been presented by my right hon. Friend. It has been constructed with considerable difficulty, it hangs together and it paves the way for greater modernisation."
	What is wrong with the present system? We have heard from many others tonight, but I want to quote Lord Sheldon when he appeared before our Select Committee. He said:
	"The Executive, via the Whips, ought not to select those members of the Select Committees who will be examining the Executive. That is crucial."
	He is right. The present system is not only wrong in principle; the process has lacked transparency and denied disappointed Members any right of appeal. The events of last summer served to highlight grievances, and Parliament put things right and challenged the Executive. In doing so, however, we did not provide a mechanism for a permanent solution to the underlying problems.
	The proposals of the Modernisation Committee provide a court of appeal and enhance transparency, while leaving the process of producing the party lists for the Select Committees in the hands of the parties themselves. In the Labour party, as my right hon. Friend has pointed out, we have already chosen a better method, which is designed to provide greater transparency and fairness in the internal party process. Nothing that comes before the House tonight will change that, except that everyone will know that there is a court of appeal and another scrutiny system, and that, in extremis, a Member could appeal to the Committee of Nomination. I believe that the very existence of the Committee of Nomination means that it will probably never be used, because of the great influence that it will have simply by being there and by affecting the way in which the parties behave. Even if Labour Members think that we have got everything right, surely we ought to care about Opposition Members.
	The composition of the Committee of Nomination, as proposed by the Modernisation Committee, has drawn many unfavourable comments: not many have been clearly voiced in the Chamber, but I can assure hon. Members that, out in the corridors, they certainly have been. They always begin with the words, "Those old . . . " I shall say no more. We now have some new, younger—we presume—people being added to the Modernisation Committee, and we all accept the proposals that are now before us, because we have accepted the amendments. We will, therefore, have 12 Members on the Committee, and they will reflect the different ages and the diversity in the House.
	My only regret is that, when the amendment was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Central (Mr. Lloyd), it was not made clear that, of the two Government additions, one should be a woman and the other a man. There is a gender imbalance on the Chairmen's Panel, and it could be addressed by the new amendments. I hope that, if the proposals are passed tonight, the spirit of that will be understood by those who make the appointments. People should look not at personalities, however, but at the independence that will be brought to the Committee of Nomination under the leadership of the Chairman of Ways and Means. This is an extremely modest proposal, but it returns to Parliament what is rightly Parliament's: the power of decision over matters of parliamentary scrutiny.
	Our report seeks to address several other problems with the present system, including the size of the Committees. I frequently go to meetings at which I meet colleagues from other European Parliaments and institutions. They always ask me at the outset, "Which Committee are you on?" There is an assumption in many Parliaments—this is now also true of the Scottish Parliament—that every Member will be on a Committee and be part of the scrutiny process, and that they will all have a place. By comparison, our scrutiny system is grossly underdeveloped, and our report seeks to address some of those problems.
	In defending the present means of selection and appointment, some new Members have told me that they think it works extremely well and that it is the most interesting part of their job. I am sure that it is, but, by defending the status quo, they deny other new Members coming to the House the opportunity to serve. There should be an increase in the numbers, although I do not agree that that should be achieved in the way that our amendment now suggests. It should have been mandatory. The report recommended that there should be 15 members, and that is what we should have had. At least we should go some way towards that tonight, however, by giving discretion to Committees.
	The right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry) talked about his Committee of 17 members. While saying that he would like it to be somewhat smaller, however, he also complained about the work load, and the complexities arising from not having full attendance. Any of us should be able to chair a Committee of 15. The Modernisation Committee—a completely cross-party Committee—has had 15 members and has been brilliantly chaired and, if I may say so, has worked extremely well. I agree with what the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) said about that tonight.

David Curry: This is not a question of the ability to chair a Committee. It is a question of the ability to ensure that the Committee spends its time doing the job that it is supposed to do, in effectively pursuing its witnesses. There is a difference between a management problem and a parliamentary political problem.

Joan Ruddock: I chair the New Deal for Communities board, which is far more diverse than any parliamentary Committee, and has 21 members. I believe that there is a skill involved in enabling people in such circumstances. As the right hon. Gentleman suggested, it does not always have to be Buggins's turn. Sometimes the member who is pursuing a point is the one who should be called more often. I accept that, but the fundamental principle here involves the opportunity for many more Members to serve on Select Committees. Because we have absences and conflicts of interest, and because people have to be in other places, having 15 members is a way of making a good Committee and enabling it to work.
	There has been talk of costs, but, frankly, this is about scrutiny, which is what we are here to do, and that has to be paid for. It has been suggested that if membership of the Foreign Affairs Committee were larger, it would have people travelling all over the world on freebies. All those things can be sorted out. People have distinct interests, even within a Select Committee, and not everyone has to do everything or go everywhere at the same time.

Gwyneth Dunwoody: It is terribly important to understand that, if a Select Committee is divided into a number of small Sub-Committees—or even quite large ones—the other members of that Committee are excluded from considering not only the evidence but the conclusions. I hope that my hon. Friend will not go down the road of assuming that constantly fragmenting a bigger Committee gets a better result. That is not the case, and it actually defeats their purpose.

Joan Ruddock: I bow to my hon. Friend's experience, but I think that these matters can be worked out. I think that, because Sub-Committees concentrate more on specific issues, they sometimes add more to the whole. I do not think there is a complete choice and we are not offering a complete prescription, but I do think the numbers need to be increased.

Donald Anderson: rose—

Joan Ruddock: I am trying to observe your strictures, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I cannot do so if I give way again.
	The report says that the parties—in effect, the Government—will still determine which party chairs which Committee. I believe that chairmanships should rotate, although the Modernisation Committee has not considered that.
	Last year, as events demonstrated, the usual channels sought to determine who would chair Committees. Even according to new proposals, and with improved methods of party selection, chairmanship could still be predetermined simply on the grounds of previous tenure and the fact that someone had done a good job. Experience shows that people can remain Chairs for three, four or even five Parliaments. They may continue to produce exemplary work, but I strongly believe that there are others with equal talents who must be given an opportunity to offer those talents. I think that one term, or five years, of a Parliament is sufficient for anyone to occupy the Chair, and it is certainly fairest if payment is involved.

Andrew Tyrie: rose—

Joan Ruddock: I have no time to give way.
	I believe that there should be a limit, and I think that the Committee's proposal of eight years is both modest and generous.
	Finally, let me put down a marker. One matter was not raised in the Committee, but I think it will need to be raised in the future. The House has environmental and financial audit, but what does not exist for all Departments, Government institutions, quangos and so forth is any auditing of equality. We need an equality Select Committee to consider issues of gender, race and disability. Ours is a fundamentally unequal society, and even now our Government have not been able to address all the inequalities.
	That is for another day, however. I appeal to my colleagues to support the whole package presented by the Modernisation Committee, both because of its intrinsic value and because it represents the start of real modernisation. The opportunity will not occur again in the near future.

George Young: I shall observe your injunction, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and try to speak with exceptional brevity.
	There has been a transformation in mood and tone since a similar debate during the last Parliament, less than a year ago. Many who are present now have taken part in debates on "Shifting the Balance", and will note that transformation. There are many reasons for it—the pioneering work of the Liaison Committee, the personality of the new Leader of the House, but also, I think, the growing appetite of Back Benchers for the reclaiming of some of the power they have lost. That, I believe, is why this is a much more consensual, constructive debate than its predecessors.
	The steam escaped at the beginning of this Parliament, at the end of July, during the debate on the Committee of Selection. What happened in 1992 gave that Committee the yellow card, and what happened in July this year gave it the red card. The system was bust, there was no way the House would accept it, and those outside who take an interest in the House would have been astounded if a discredited system had remained.
	My Select Committee was not one of the those for which payments were proposed, and I do not want to be paid, but I think Chairmen of investigative committees should be paid. I take the points made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry) and the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) about the risk of damage to cohesion and integrity if Committee Chairmen were paid, but I do not agree. I think that if the House decided that the hon. Lady and my right hon. Friend should be paid, their Committees would work every bit as effectively as they do now. I do not think integrity or cohesion would be damaged if the House decided it was in the interest of building an alternative career structure for Chairmen to be paid.
	I do not, however, buy the argument that that generosity should be extended to the shadow Cabinet. What we are trying to do is offer an alternative career path. The advantage for members of the shadow Cabinet is that one day they will be paid as Ministers. It would confuse the issue to start paying them on the back of the argument for remunerating Select Committee Chairmen.
	Nor am I persuaded by the eight-year rule. If we are trying to offer an alternative career, why should we place an eight-year restriction on that career when there is no eight-year restriction on a ministerial term? Are we really saying that, had the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) not taken the Queen's shilling, he should not have been eligible to chair the Home Affairs Select Committee? Should a young man be cut off in his prime? The key question, surely, is this: which member of that Select Committee would best chair it, and best hold the Executive to account? We should ask not how long the Chairman has done his job, but whether he is the best at it.

Greg Knight: Can my right hon. Friend tell us how many Ministers of the Crown have served for more than eight years since the second world war?

George Young: I plead guilty, and I would have been very distressed if after eight years John Major had said "I am very sorry, George, but you have had your eight years; that's it".
	The key question for the Prime Minister is the question I have just posed: who is best able to discharge the portfolio? My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) was a Minister for some 18 years. He would say that he was just warming up at the end of that period, and ready for more challenges.
	I want to make two final points, the first of which is about the size of Committees. I understand the argument that every Member should have an opportunity to display his or her talents by serving on a Select Committee, and I understand the argument about representation of minority parties, but I do not think that those are the key questions. The key question, in this context, is this: at what size can a Select Committee operate most effectively? What is the right size to enable it to hold the Executive to account? I think Committees should have about 11 or 13 members. The more members are added, the greater the diminishing returns. Each time the membership is increased from five to seven, from seven to nine and from nine to 11, value is added and the value of the extra member is significant, but as soon as it is increased from 11 or from 13 the diminishing returns begin.
	I accept the arguments of nearly all members of the Liaison Committee. They argue that they can do their job more effectively with a smaller Committee. There is another point, which has not been mentioned: if more people are appointed to a Select Committee, they are not doing nothing else. It is not a nil sum game. If more people are asked to spend more time on Select Committees, they will probably spend less time in Westminster Hall and on Standing Committees.
	My last point is about Prime Minister's Question Time, which I think is a disaster area. It is the worst possible way of holding the Prime Minister to account. It is most unusual to get any information out of the Prime Minister, but, even worse, Question Time gives people an entirely wrong impression of what politics is about. They assume that the House of Commons is always like that. That is one reason why people are switched off politics: they assume that that is what we are like. I think that there is an appetite for a less adversarial, more constructive, more strategic approach to questioning the Prime Minister.
	I do not envy my right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams) his task of chairing the Liaison Committee, but I am sure he will do it well. Perhaps the House will learn from what the Committee does, and the format of Prime Minister's Question Time on the Floor of the House may change if the House discovers that there is a better way of holding the Government to account.
	Yes, the balance is shifting; but the momentum needs to be maintained if the House is to return to what should be its position.

Andrew Dismore: Although many of the Committee's proposals are good—more resources for Select Committees, the debating of reports, and so forth—I have severe reservations about two or three aspects of them. I shall begin with the question of Committee size, as that is where the right hon. Member for North–West Hampshire (Sir George Young) left off.
	Arguing that the size of Committees should be increased to provide more people with more jobs is not very attractive reasoning. It would not make Committees more effective; indeed, evidence from the Liaison Committee and the comments that we have heard today have overwhelmingly demonstrated the opposite. Not only would there be less participation by each Committee member, and therefore less time to pursue particular lines of inquiry, but it is less likely that unanimity would be reached. One of the great strengths of the Select Committee system is the ability to produce unanimous cross-party reports. The greater the number of members, the greater the risk of party political division, and the less cogent the reports would be.
	The first solution is to ensure that existing members of Select Committees actually turn up. If they fail to turn up without good reason, they should be replaced. That is the answer to the quorum question, and I am pleased that the Modernisation Committee report deals with it to some degree.
	Another solution is to consider the configuration of existing Committees. We have heard about the great work load of some of the bigger Committees. If the work of some groups is sufficiently discrete, they could perhaps be divided into full Select Committees in their own right, rather than being split into Sub-Committees. My hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) may have a view on whether transport should have a full Select Committee in its own right. The creation of giant Departments is perhaps linked to the current anomaly, as well as to some of the transport problems that we face.
	We have considered the creation of new Select Committees. Some Government Departments do not have their own Select Committees. For example, the Lord Chancellor's Department and the Law Officers' Department are lumped in with the Home Office for Select Committee purposes, and it is clear that they do not get the scrutiny that they deserve. Perhaps we should consider establishing a separate Committee to scrutinise those Departments. The same is true of the Cabinet Office; if we genuinely want to achieve joined-up government, perhaps we should establish a Committee that examines it per se.
	We already have cross-departmental Committees such as the Joint Committee on Human Rights, the Science and Technology Committee and the Environmental Audit Committee. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock) that we should perhaps establish a Select Committee on equality that can examine such issues across government. In establishing whether the configuration of Committees is right, perhaps we could also create the necessary additional jobs and improve the effectiveness of the scrutiny of Government, rather than simply providing more jobs on existing Committees, thereby potentially weakening their effectiveness.
	My other main reservation concerns the Committee of Nomination. I agree with the approach adopted by the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Knight). Do we need it, and if so, why? The argument in favour of the Committee of Nomination is that it would ensure fair play and provide a court of appeal, but in what way? Such decisions will be taken by the parties, and it has been accepted that parties will produce their own lists, much as they already do. We seem to have overlooked the fact that since last summer's spat the Labour party has reformed its procedures, thereby almost certainly ensuring that such problems will not arise again.
	My concern is that complaints already heard in the parliamentary Labour party, and, ultimately, on the Floor of the House, could be heard in yet another forum. We are told that that would happen only in exceptional circumstances, but three such circumstances have occurred already. The danger is that we will create a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Today's proposals certainly do not recognise the changes that the parliamentary Labour party, at least, has already made to its procedures.
	I am worried about the possibility that we would be creating a whinger's charter. People who could not convince their own colleagues that they ought to be put on a particular Select Committee would be able to run and tell tales to a group of more senior, unelected Committee members—who, as the Liberal Democrats have pointed out, would have the power not only to accommodate the whinger, but to remove someone who did enjoy the confidence of the party in question. Their acquiring such power would be a natural consequence of the proposal.
	The report says that we must come up with a structure that enjoys the confidence of both sides of the House. It is bad enough that a minority of Opposition Members could decide on Government appointments. For example, they would have the power to examine the Labour party's papers, demand explanations of our party's decisions and overturn recommendations. Do the Opposition seriously want a Committee with a Government majority—albeit one that might operate in a non-party political way—to take decisions on their appointments? That surely cannot be good for scrutiny. In fact, it would give a Committee with a Government majority the right to get rid of Opposition appointees and replace them with people more to its liking, which would give rise to potential for great mischief.

Martin Salter: Will my hon. Friend clarify one important point? The premise of his argument is the retention of the existing Committee of Selection, which is dominated by Whips, and which in the past has been known to meet for some three minutes, or even, in certain cases, 30 seconds. Does he not realise that that process is discredited? Does he not further realise that the House of Commons as a whole would have the power to overturn the recommendations of the Committee of Nomination, just as it can overturn those of the Committee of Selection? In relation to the powers vested in this House and its individual Members, the proposed process is in no way different.

Andrew Dismore: I hear what my hon. Friend says, but he has overlooked the fact that since the problems arose last year, the parliamentary Labour party has reformed its system—although I cannot speak for the other parties. Of course the right already exists to take such matters to the House of Commons. In effect, my hon. Friend is trying to replace one set of people with another.
	As for the configuration of the Committee of Selection, an amendment has been accepted that marginally improves matters. However, in effect, existing members of the Committee owe their membership to the principle of Buggins's turn. If the proposed Committee were established today, most of its male members would have been elected between 1959 and 1983. There might be one or two new Members as well, but such a membership would certainly not represent the balance of interests in the House. Nor would they have the knowledge, strengths and special interests of hon. Members as a whole.
	A series of complicated amendments has been synthesised into one to deal with that problem, but it has not worked. When I entered Parliament in 1997 I knew a few of my intake, but I knew nothing about the vast majority of the others, and I certainly knew very little about those who had been Members for a long time—excluding what one read in the newspapers, or heard on "Today In Parliament." Moreover, the media give a poor impression of what people are really like. The 1992 intake did not know much about the 1997 intake, and the 1997 intake knew practically nothing about the 2001 intake. We can tinker at the margins by trying to create places for Members from recent intakes, but that will not address the issue of knowing the strengths and weaknesses of Members throughout the House. I am therefore concerned about the concept of the Committee of Nomination and the mechanics of its operation.

Robert Marshall-Andrews: Will my hon. Friend give way?

Andrew Dismore: No, because I am drawing my remarks to a close.
	I am concerned by the suggestion that the Chairman should be chosen by the Committee itself. I question whether, when the chairmanship of a Select Committee has been allocated to the Opposition, it is right for the Government members of the Committee to be able to choose the Chairman. According to that principle, the Work and Pensions Committee, of which I am a member, would not have chosen our current Chairman—he is a good Chairman—because he is the only Liberal Democrat member of it. The suggestion is therefore rather nonsensical.
	I agree that there should be a time limit on the length of service of Select Committee Chairmen, and what has been offered is a reasonable compromise in that respect. However, I want an assurance that we will not be subjected to musical chairs. Where a given Committee is reconfigured as a Department is restructured, the opportunity could arise for someone who has already served two terms to be parachuted in for a third term on a different Select Committee. The principle should be, "Two strikes and you're out", to make room for other people with an equal right to serve in that capacity.

Archy Kirkwood: It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend—if I may call him that—the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore), who sits on the Work and Pensions Committee with me. I enjoy working with him, and as he says, the Committee operates on the basis of consensus. The idea of consensus on a Select Committee is an important point, which I am picking up from the excellent speech by the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Tony Wright). He was right to say that people's perception of this place is of confrontational, custard-pie politics.
	The work of Select Committees, if they are operating properly, follows from the evidence presented to all their members. They draw conclusions based on the evidence presented to them. It can be difficult for members from the governing party, but if the evidence is produced they will say, "Yes, there are problems that the Government need to address." That has certainly been my experience. That is the essence of the work of Select Committees, and we need to promote that ethic and change the way in which we work in the House. Otherwise we will continue to fall in the esteem of the public, and that is a matter of great concern for the whole democratic process.
	I share the enthusiasm for the tone of the debate and the proposals. I have not seen such an opportunity for change in my time in the House, which began in 1983. Other hon. Members have explained all the elements of the changes earlier in the debate, so I shall not go into those, but I should point out that the Leader of the House has played a key role in the process. The weight of his presence on the Modernisation Committee and on the House of Commons Commission has unlocked doors in a way that I have never seen before. With his authority, he has been able to confront the collective power of the Whips in a way that Leaders of the House in the past—although I say nothing against them—have perhaps not been able to do. The present Leader of the House has used his position to begin a process of change.
	The hon. Member for Hendon raised detailed points of concern. He is a thoughtful man, and we would be right to consider his views, but I hope that colleagues will see the proposals as the start of a long journey. A process of evolution could shift the balance, in the way that the Liaison Committee started to identify in the last Parliament.
	When we are trying to shift the balance, we should continually remind ourselves of the weight balanced against us. The total sum of money spent by central Government in the fiscal year 2001–02 was £394 billion. The total sum spent by the House on all aspects of scrutiny was £7.7 million. According to my calculations, that is 0.002 per cent. of the total sum spent by the Government. The Public Accounts Committee has control over the National Audit Office, which has 750 staff, and the House has only 150 professionals in its staff complement to support the scrutiny work of Members of Parliament. Moreover, the disproportion has been worsening.
	As part of the package of changes, we need to think about how we can shift the balance. I come back to the role that the Leader of the House has played in the process. As a member of the House of Commons Commission, I can confirm that the Commission has signed up to the project. Its members have already started thinking about funding for a central unit. We cannot do anything until the disposition of the House is known after the Divisions tonight, but if it is the will of the House, it would be possible to have in place a central unit, with 18 new members of staff, by autumn 2003. That would mean the expenditure of some £850,000. I have been a Member of Parliament for nearly 20 years and a member of the Commission for six or seven years, but I have never before known it possible to devote such sums to the House of Commons' work of scrutiny.
	Not only the core unit would be funded; the Internal Review Service, with the help of the NAO, is already working on plans for additional support for each Committee's office, in addition to the core unit. The right hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams) has also played a distinguished and important role in that process. The Commission has already committed itself to trying to assist the political process that has been started, within reason and subject to the budget for the next three-year expenditure plan. Of course there is not enough money to do everything that we would like to do, but in the past 18 months there has been a sea change in the willingness of the House authorities to assist the process, and we should seize that opportunity with both hands.

Barry Sheerman: I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the resources represent a wonderful opportunity for the Select Committee system, and we must thank many people for that. However, does he agree that the Select Committee system will be on trial? If in the end people still think that Select Committees are a little ghetto into which some hon. Members disappear and never communicate with the rest of the House, we will have failed. We have to ensure that we are worthy to be given the resources, and worthy of the confidence of the House.

Archy Kirkwood: I agree with the hon. Gentleman. I fear that the list of core tasks mentioned in the motion may become prescriptive, but it at least gives us a measure by which, over a Parliament, we can test the effectiveness of the work that we do. We will indeed need to demonstrate that the changes have made a difference to the effectiveness of the Select Committees.
	The proposal to provide salaries for the Chairmen of Select Committees is the right approach, because an alternative career structure within the current system is an essential third part of the package, along with a core unit and adequate staff for each Committee. We need professional Chairmen, especially for Committees such as the Work and Pensions Committee, whose work is becoming ever more technical. It needs a specialist, who spends two, three, or even three and a half days a week on the work. We need to provide the career structure and money that will make that work worth while. For the first time ever, we have an opportunity to bring that about.
	I enjoy working with my colleagues on the Work and Pensions Committee—there are 11 of us—in a spirit of consensus. However, I fear the difficulty of trying to achieve that consensus with 15 members. On Wednesday we heard from three different groups of witnesses, with two people representing each group. It was difficult even for the number of Committee members who were present—we always have a good turn-out—to cross-examine six people meaningfully, but with 15 members it would have been impossible. People would have been dissatisfied and demotivated.
	As the hon. Member for Hendon pointed out, smaller memberships are necessary to produce powerful consensual reports, because people have the opportunity to get to know each other well enough. I am worried by the proposals to increase the size of Select Committees, although—I would say this, because I am member of one of them—I accept the need to try to ensure that the views of minority parties are reflected on Select Committees.
	The hon. Member for Hendon thinks deeply about these issues, but I disagree with his point about the Committee of Nomination. It is an essential part of the package. I served for five years, without time off for good behaviour, on the Committee of Selection. It is difficult for the Government to ensure that all the Standing Committees, including those on delegated legislation, are properly put together, but that is different from the important work that the Committee does in trying to find people to sit on Select Committees.

Robert Marshall-Andrews: I disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) about the Nomination Committee. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is a misconception that the Committee needs to be concerned about the identity of individual Select Committee members? Its task is not to replace one Select Committee member with another, but to guard against the abuse of process and the corruption that has been evident for far too long in its predecessor.

Archy Kirkwood: I agree.
	We should try the Committee of Nomination process for the rest of this Parliament. If there are difficulties and it does not work, we can revisit the matter, but it is important to try it. I agree with those who say that it may be a long time before the opportunity arises again.

Gwyneth Dunwoody: A very senior member of the civil service recently gave a lecture at which he was asked for his opinion of the role of Parliament as a scrutinising organ. He replied that Parliament did not scrutinise, as the press fulfilled that function. Parliament would have to find another role, he said.
	We should take that observation on board. The Chamber has lost many powers to demand answers from Members of Parliament, and many other aspects have been eroded. Much of what we assumed was accepted practice is no longer so. People do not think that it matters that statements are made not to the House of Commons first, but to fit in with press deadlines. They do not think that it matters that, when asked to appear as witnesses before a Select Committee, people can respond that they are Members of the other place or that they have a problem and cannot attend.
	For the first time, my Select Committee produced a report about the need for Treasury Ministers to appear before it. Those Ministers have a political role now, over and above the involvement in negotiations about cash that they have always had. We have not even had a reply from the Government.
	The House tonight is debating the urgent need for reforms to the system, and what those reforms should be. We must learn the fundamental lesson that every hon. Member is responsible for holding the Executive to account. We must be able to demonstrate to our voters that, in a democratic system, we are serious about asking difficult and often uncomfortable questions. We are not here to be always popular.
	I speak as someone who has made a career out of not being popular. When I first came here, the House was fiercely sexist, and now it is ageist. Neither quality has done me much good, so it appears that my political timing has been wrong on all counts.
	Select Committees are vital when it comes to finding out what the Government are doing, and why, and what they intend for the future. The system must have proper staffing. The House may not appreciate how much work is done by the Clerks and the specialist advisers. Select Committees are not even able to ask for economic models from the Government such as were produced by the Treasury for public-private partnership proposals. We do not have access to vital bits of information. Select Committees need to have much bigger staff, with much better pay and resources.
	I oppose the proposal to pay Chairmen, however. Select Committees work because all members are equal and must work together. I am determined that all members should be able to comment on any report that my Select Committee produces, because they have all contributed to it. It has been said that the only way to get good-quality people to work on Select Committees is to establish an alternative career structure and pay Chairmen, but I believe that that undermines the role of Select Committees.
	It is sad that Labour Members are prepared to say that the worth of people can be judged only by what they earn. We should remember how paramedics have had to crawl into damaged train carriages in the past few days. We should ask ourselves whether we as a nation have our priorities right, given the vast sums of money earned by people in the media or other careers. Their work may be useful and entertaining, but they are not vital services. I do not agree that we will get the quality that we deserve only if we pay Select Committee chairmen extra.
	That is nonsensical, and it plays into the hands of those who say that Members of Parliament fulfil their true worth only when they disappear into the junior ranks of Government. Many hon. Members become invisible once they do that. They do not take serious decisions or change anything, yet they seem to think that that is the only way they can progress.
	All Members of Parliament are here to use their judgment and abilities. We earn a very reasonable salary, and the need to give ourselves extra carrots on top of that raises questions about our political and moral judgment.
	Select Committees work because members hear evidence and reach an agreed report. They listen to witnesses and ask questions. That is the basis of the conclusions that they reach. It has been proposed that increasing the membership of Select Committees so that smaller groups can be formed and sent off here and there will improve the quality of scrutiny. That is nonsense. I assure the House that when half the membership of a Select Committee produces a report, the other half—who have not read the evidence, or listened to it—are often full of the confidence of ignorance. They are very happy to tell those who have been active in producing a report that their conclusions are wrong and should be rewritten.
	That is not a constructive way to produce useful reports for Parliament. The task of Select Committees is to reply to Parliament, not to Government. We will be in considerable danger if we lose that function.
	Modern government is complex and covers many different roles. Many unaccountable methods are employed to get decisions through the system. I am not talking about a Cabinet Office with three different sections and innumerable committees chaired by people who are not elected. I am talking about the business of government, and about the numbers of Departments that have their own quangos, sub-committees and arrangements.
	The House has still not grasped the extent of the problem. We have lost the ability to demand that the Government remember that they are answerable to hon. Members because we are elected. Until we take back that power, progress will remain limited.
	The report is important. It was produced mainly by men, so it is not perfect, but it has a great deal to offer. However, I remind the House that Select Committees are an opportunity and a responsibility. More than that, they are our hope for the future. If we mess up the chance to make them really effective, what hon. Members do elsewhere will not matter. Everything will be a matter of presentation, and the general public will rapidly cotton on to how unimportant that renders us.

Pete Wishart: I add the congratulations of the Scottish National party to those already extended to the Modernisation Committee, which has produced a thorough and robust report under the stewardship of the Leader of the House.
	We very much welcome the broad thrust of the report and support the Committee in its efforts to strengthen and extend the role of Select Committees. We also agree with the Leader of the House that the measures would improve the scrutiny provided by Select Committees and would add to their ability to hold the Executive to account.
	I also welcome the remarks about pre-legislative scrutiny. That has been a positive experience in the past, and I know that the Leader of the House was impressed when he visited the Scottish Parliament last year and saw how the committee structure there was focused on delivering pre-legislative scrutiny.
	We contend that Select Committees should reflect, as far as possible, all shades of opinion in the House. The Government should go the extra mile and ensure that all the political parties here are represented properly in the House's institutions. We therefore support the increase in the number of members of Select Committees. I hope that the House will support our amendment this evening and that the minority parties will gain extra places.
	Under the current situation, the Scottish National party and Plaid Cymru have no membership of a non-regional departmental Committee. That is unacceptable—we are effectively barred from further scrutiny of important Departments that still have a major remit in relation to some of the constituents whom we are here to represent.
	We support the Prime Minister's announcement that he will appear in front of the Liaison Committee. However, it means that once again, we in the minority parties are effectively shut out, as we have no membership of the Liaison Committee. The arithmetic of the House traditionally works against minority parties because of the thresholds required to obtain a place. A body that is 34-strong means that we should be entitled to a place, but the Liaison Committee is composed solely of Chairs of Committees, and we have difficulty in securing a place on a Committee, far less one of the chairmanships. The three main parties will have the opportunity further to scrutinise the work of the Prime Minister while the minority parties will not. That is one more example of how the House can be seen as unrepresentative and not including all shades of opinion.
	I am disappointed that the Liaison Committee has come out against increasing the number of members on Select Committees. What would it do to try to increase the number of members of minority parties on Select Committees? I looked carefully at its response to the Modernisation Committee report and found no mention of the minority parties. I found its objection to increasing the size of Select Committees pretty unconvincing and, in parts, feeble.
	The Liaison Committee doubts whether there will be enough Members to fill the increased number of places on Select Committees. Only some 40 per cent. of Members serve on Select Committees, whereas 100 per cent. of Bundestag Members serve on Select Committees of that Parliament. Members of the Scottish Parliament serve on at least two Committees. It is argued that Members might not be found to serve on Select Committees. What do right hon. and hon. Members think we are in this place for if not to provide effective scrutiny of the Government?
	I think that the real reason why the Liaison Committee has come out so strongly against the increase in numbers is that its members are in real danger of becoming a self-preserving Select Committee élite. I caution it against pursuing that route; it should become a Committee of the whole House.
	Right hon. and hon. Members have said, mainly from sedentary positions, that minority parties do not have places on Select Committee because our numbers are so small. We are indeed minority parties, in terms of the basic arithmetic of the House.

Lady Hermon: May I ask the hon. Gentleman to reflect on the unique position of Northern Ireland? This Government—and I am very pleased that it was this Government—entered into the Belfast agreement and guaranteed the constitutional position of Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom unless and until a majority of people voted otherwise. Surely, then, it is essential, in fulfilling the obligations of that agreement, that the main nationalist parties—the Social Democratic and Labour Party and the Ulster Unionist party—are represented in this House in all its aspects, including Select Committees?

Pete Wishart: The hon. Lady makes a very good point which demonstrates why minority parties should be included in the membership of Select Committees. Let us start to unravel what we mean by minority parties. I represent the Scottish National party—the principal Opposition party in the Scottish Parliament and the second party of Scotland which is quickly becoming established as the first party. My hon. Friends in Plaid Cymru are the second party and the principal Opposition party of the National Assembly for Wales. The right hon. and hon. Members who sit on the Benches behind me, along with SDLP Members, are the effective Government of Northern Ireland. We have a massive constituency—we represent millions of people. Because of the electoral system and the way in which votes are cast, we unfortunately do not have the number of Members that our votes deserve, but we hope that that will change in the not-too-distant future.
	I think that all right hon. and hon. Members will agree that the House must represent all shades of opinion in the country. Indeed, the House should make every effort to ensure that that happens. The Scottish Parliament includes single Members of three minority parties. They have been given Select Committee places way beyond what the basic arithmetic would suggest. That is a good example, which the House would do well to follow.
	Our amendment would include the leaders of all the minority parties—or if not the leaders, the Whips. That is a significant achievement. I hope that right hon. and hon. Members consider that when they vote tonight, because we will certainly push the amendment to a vote.
	We also tabled an amendment to include a minority party member in the new Committee of Nomination, but unfortunately it was not selected. We believe it important that a voice from the minority parties should at least be given the opportunity to put the case for minority representation on Select Committees. We might not be successful, but at least we should be given the opportunity to put the case.
	After the breakdown of our relationship with the Liberal Democrats—an arrangement that all minority parties found unsatisfactory—the minority parties came together. We now deal directly with the Government—an arrangement that has proved very satisfactory. We agree among ourselves who should be nominated for Committee places and present the names weekly to the Government, who then put our case at the Committee of Selection. Although that has been a satisfactory arrangement, it is no substitute for putting our case directly. However, I must say that our new arrangements with the Government and, indeed, the Opposition Whips have been useful, constructive and even friendly. The Government have put our case well and we have managed to secure most of the places that we have sought. Sometimes I wonder where the Whips' fearsome reputation comes from: I found them the most congenial bunch of gentlemen, with whom it has been a pleasure to work.
	We reject the composition of the Committee of Nomination not only because we will continue to be frozen out but because it is the same old story. Having seven members of the Chairmen's Panel is fair enough, as the Chairmen's Panel is the first port of call in finding people to fill the new Committee. However, the Committee will also consist of the four most senior members of the governing party, the two most senior members of the principal Opposition party, and one member of the Liberal Democrats. It sounds like the same old arithmetic.

Alex Salmond: The same old gang.

Pete Wishart: The same old gang, as my hon. Friend says.
	In addition, the Committee will include the most senior Government Back Bencher and the most senior Opposition Back Bencher. That looks like our best way in: if, by sheer willpower, we could outlive everybody else on the Opposition Benches, we might secure a place on the Committee of Nomination. I will be inquiring daily as to the well-being and health of my hon. Friend the Member for Banff and Buchan and doing all that I can to persuade him to remain in this House so that we can secure our place on the Committee of Nomination.
	All the places on the Committee will once again be taken by the three mainstream United Kingdom parties, and the minority parties will be shut out. I hope that right hon. and hon. Members will agree that it is important that all opinions are represented in the Committees and structures of the House, and that they will support our amendment.

Julia Drown: My hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes, South-West (Dr. Starkey) and I are not pressing the amendments in our name in favour of those tabled by my hon. Friends the Members for Manchester, Central (Mr. Lloyd) and for Rhondda (Mr. Bryant).
	There is a controversy over how we move forward on the Committee of Nomination, and real lessons can be learned from this debate. The House is finally beginning to accept that longevity of Members in this place should not count. All MPs—all Back Benchers—should be equal in this place. The attitude has been that every year people spend here adds to their wisdom so that their views count more than those of others. We frequently see such people called to speak first in debates and at Question Time, but there is no basis for that. There were great talents in the 2001 intake of MPs, just as there were in earlier intakes. The views of the 2001 intake and others are equally valid; I see them as equally intelligent. Their constituents deserve to be heard just as much as the constituents of Members who have been in this place longer.
	The longevity rules have created a bias against young people, yet we hear increasingly that young people are not involved in democracy. If young people do not believe that they have an equal say in this House, that will continue.
	The system also creates a bias against marginal constituencies because, by their very nature, the Members who represent them will have spent less time here. Their constituents—the people in constituencies where there has been more of a political debate—will not be heard so much, whereas constituencies where the votes have been weighed for centuries will continue to have a louder voice.
	Parliament has changed too slowly in the past and is still changing too slowly. We need to change dramatically if we are to catch up and bring the British public with us. When I discussed my amendment with colleagues, the pervasive view was that perhaps the 1997 intake should be considered, but not the 2001 intake—because "They won't know how Parliament works." However, it is the job of colleagues and Officers of the House to ensure that even if a Member has been here only for a day they can play a full part as a Back Bencher; they can make sensible judgments. In relation to the Committee of Nomination, Members from the 2001 intake could bring the freshest and most independent views.
	I regret that the gender balance allowed for in the Modernisation Committee's original report is no longer included. We could now end up with a Committee of 11 men and only two women. If we want women to be more interested in politics and more willing to come forward, we need to ensure that they are more visible.
	We must make dramatic moves forward, although I share the consensus expressed in the House today. We are moving further and faster than we have done in the past. I congratulate the Leader of the House on listening to Back Benchers and look forward to further developments.

Andrew Tyrie: In the three minutes allowed me, I want to make two points. First, the most fundamental change for Parliament in the long run will come from the fact that the Prime Minister will start to appear before Select Committees. I have long supported that proposal; in fact, I first discussed it a long time ago with John Major when he was Prime Minister. He was not enthusiastic about the idea.
	I am pleased that the current Prime Minister has grasped the fact that there is something in it for him and that scrutiny is not a zero-sum game. I would add only that the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Tony Wright) is not quite right to suggest that we can rely on precedent. Between the wars, Prime Ministers made only four such appearances; four times in 20 years is not remotely enough.

Chris Bryant: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Andrew Tyrie: I do not have time.
	My second point is that at the heart of the Select Committee system must be the quality of and the respect accorded to the Chairmen. Chairmen should be elected by secret ballot by the whole House. We should first go through the normal horse trading to decide which Committees go to which party and then nominations should go forward from us for election to Select Committee chairmanships. I support most of the proposals in the report, and that is the only major proposal of mine that has not appeared even as a point for further discussion.
	That proposal would fundamentally alter the position of Select Committee Chairmen. If they were elected, they would have a position of great authority in the House and that would bring them far greater media attention. More than any other measure, that would tilt the balance between the Executive and the legislature. The Leader of the House has done a marvellous job so far and I warmly commend him. I hope that I do not damage his career by saying that. He has done a remarkable job and I urge him to reconsider this proposal.

Eric Forth: It was my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry) who touched on the fundamental issue, although it has not been fully articulated for reasons that I well understand: it is the anomaly that has existed since the Select Committee system was set up in its present form more than 20 years ago and attempted, valiantly, to replicate the congressional system in this country while rather conveniently ignoring the fact that a legislature that gives birth to and sustains the Executive also attempts to hold that Executive to account.
	That fundamental anomaly underlies the difficulty that we have been skirting around all day. It is reflected in the fact, which my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie) has just touched on, that the chairmanships of Select Committees are divvied up, or shared out, on the basis of party in the House; and that memberships of Select Committees, as I pointed out to the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Tony Wright), are apportioned on the basis of party representation in the legislature. Perhaps it is no wonder that ever since 1979 we have not only struggled to identify a role for Select Committees vis-à-vis the Executive but have been asking ourselves why the Executive—or the usual channels, or whatever—are constantly seen to interfere and intervene in the working of Select Committees.
	Although the proposals are a valiant attempt to deal with that difficulty, it will only be superficial until we have the courage to address that fundamental paradox and anomaly. We must not skirt over the problems arising from the fact that Select Committees have a majority of Government Members. I do not want to dwell on the matter, but the House will remember a recent episode when key members of the Select Committee on the Treasury were absent and the Committee produced a report that was not convenient to the Government.
	The hon. Member for Broxtowe (Dr. Palmer) let the cat out of the bag when he said, in essence, that it was all very well when Select Committees could operate on the basis of consensus, but that if that was ever threatened—in other words if a Committee got a bit political—the Government majority would ensure that a report was passed that was not critical of the Government. That was the gist of his remarks and it rather gave the lie to the problem and the attitude regrettably held by many Members.
	The hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore), like the hon. Member for Manchester, Central (Mr. Lloyd), touched on the odd fact that the problem experienced by the House last year over the treatment of the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) and the right hon. Member for Swansea, East (Donald Anderson) was, in the end, sorted out by the House. That challenges the whole thrust of the Modernisation Committee's argument and underpins the proposals that the Leader of the House and the Committee are recommending to the House.
	The truth is that in many ways, which have been described by many right hon. and hon. Members during the debate, the existing system has served the House pretty well over the years. When that problem arose last year, it was dealt with by the House of Commons; it did not require some elaborate construct of the kind proposed today—with all the peculiarities of gender and intake balance, seniority and new Members with which we have struggled throughout the debate.
	Is the game worth the candle? Is the system sufficiently broke that we feel have to fix it? Is the proposed construct the right answer?

Robert Marshall-Andrews: Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that the House of Commons was able to remedy that serious wrong because it was an absolutely gross example of the corruption that we have been talking about today? The measures are attempting to catch the smaller corruptions.

Eric Forth: I do not think that I share the hon. and learned Gentleman's use of the word "corruption" in any sense at all. The system is as it is; most of us understand it pretty well and we found a way of dealing with the problem. It may not have been pleasant for the powers that be—or the powers of darkness, if we want to describe them thus—but in the end the problem was resolved.
	The proposals offer a series of elaborate answers to a problem that does not require the solution that is before the House. As I think the Leader of the House implied when he opened the debate, the motions are not some sort of take or leave it. A series of propositions has been put to the House with which, obviously, some Members will agree and others will disagree. I welcome the fact that the House will be able to form its view on each issue—whether it be the size of Committees, the composition of the Committee of Nomination or whatever. We shall vote as we think fit, having—some of us—listened to the debate. We shall then move on from that.
	A heartening variety of views were expressed during the debate and I welcome that. Although my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Knight) offered some guidance to my right hon. and hon. Friends, they will all vote as they choose. I am glad to know that Government Members will do the same. I am not convinced that the problem is as it was identified, and I am certainly not convinced that the solution is one that we need follow.

Robin Cook: I am disappointed that the amendment of the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) calling for parity for the Opposition with the Government on Select Committees was not selected. As the danger in it does not now arise, I must point out that I was almost tempted to accept it if only for the entertainment value of watching the Opposition struggling to fill all the extra places on Select Committees when they cannot even fill the present places that they have without drafting in Front Benchers to replace Back Benchers.
	My reply can be brief, because I have heard little in the debate that criticises the Modernisation Committee's report. I am sometimes told that some Members are unhappy with the proposals, but I can only point out that, during the debate, one Back Bencher opposed the proposals and 13 others supported most elements of the Committee's report. In fact, most of them supported all the elements in the report. I am very grateful for the generous words about me and the Modernisation Committee that Members have uttered in the debate, but I must warn them that I am a professional politician. I much prefer their votes in the Lobby to their kind words in the Chamber.
	It is a fair summary of the debate to say that the House has welcomed the report. The amendment of my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Central (Mr. Lloyd) is regarded as improving the Committee of Nomination and the House will accept the compromise on Committee size that we have put forward today.
	Refreshingly, the House has dwelt very little on the question of extra pay for the Chairs of the Select Committees. I do not know how that vote will go, but I hope that tomorrow's press—perhaps even tomorrow's "Today" programme—will not report that the debate was about an increase in remuneration, but was a serious and thoughtful discussion about how the House best discharges its duty of scrutiny through the Select Committees.
	The package will greatly strengthen the Select Committees. It will give them more resources, more focus and more transparency. However, the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler) and my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Tony Wright) were right. It is a package and it risks falling apart if it is picked apart piece by piece. In that context, I wish to say a word about what was said in the debate—not in speeches, but in interventions—about the Committee of Nomination. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr. McCabe) twice asked why we should replace 410 Labour Members of Parliament with a Committee of seven. That is a fundamental misconception of the role of the Committee of Nomination.
	The Committee of Nomination will not replace the party process; it will replace the Committee of Selection, which, as the hon. Member for North Cornwall memorably pointed out, normally meets for 30 seconds to three minutes. That is not adequate time for the free and independent play of thoughts. The Committee of Nomination will not interfere with the party process. I helped to write the new process for the Labour party, and I am proud of that process. I am confident that its democracy and transparency will produce the right outcome.
	There is a paradox in the view of some of my colleagues. They are also proud of that process and are confident about its democracy, but they appear worried that anyone else should cast an investigative eye over the outcome. I am not frightened of the Committee of Nomination. It is right that Parliament should have the right to see that fair play is done in the party process. I urge my right hon. and hon. Friends not to be frightened either, but welcome the fact that the Committee will reinforce the standing of Select Committees and make it clear that nomination is independent of the control of party or Executive machine. As a result, the Select Committees of the House will carry greater legitimacy, command greater confidence and bring greater authority to their task of scrutiny.
	It being four hours after the commencement of proceedings on the motion, Mr. Deputy Speaker put the Questions necessary to dispose of the business to be concluded at that hour, pursuant to Order [13 May.]
	Amendment proposed: (d), in line 5, after 'House', insert
	'welcomes the proposal to increase the size of Select Committees; believes that the Select Committees must represent all shades of opinion in the House and therefore calls for some of these new places to be reserved for the minority parties;'.—[Mr. Wishart.]

Question put, That the amendment be made:—
	The House divided: Ayes 50, Noes 352.

Question accordingly negatived.
	Main Question put and agreed to.
	Resolved,
	That this House approves the First Report of the Select Committee on Modernisation of the House of Commons relating to Select Committees, House of Commons Paper No 221-I, and in particular welcomes its commitment to more specialist and support staff for select committees; is of the view that the package as a whole will strengthen the scrutiny role of the House; and invites the Liaison Committee to establish common objectives for select committees, taking into account the illustrative model set out in paragraph 34 of that report, namely
	to consider major policy initiatives
	to consider the Government's response to major emerging issues
	to propose changes where evidence persuades the Committee that present policy requires amendment
	to conduct pre-legislative scrutiny of draft bills
	to examine and report on main Estimates, annual expenditure plans and annual resource accounts
	to monitor performance against targets in the public service agreements
	to take evidence from each Minister at least annually
	to take evidence from independent regulators and inspectorates
	to consider the reports of Executive Agencies
	to consider, and if appropriate report on, major appointments by a Secretary of State or other senior ministers
	to examine treaties within their subject areas.

SELECT COMMITTEES (No. 1)

Motion made, and Question proposed,
	That—
	(1) the following Standing Order (Committee of Nomination) be made:
	"(1) There shall be a select committee, called the Committee of Nomination, to propose to the House the membership of all select committees other than the Committee of Nomination itself and any other select committee for which the House makes other provision.
	(2) The committee shall consist of nine members nominated by the Chairman of Ways and Means, who shall be the following:
	(a) the most senior woman member of the Chairmen's Panel belonging to the Government party, and the three other most senior members of the Panel belonging to that party;
	(b) the most senior woman member of the Panel belonging to the party to which the Leader of the Opposition belongs, and the other most senior member of the Panel belonging to that party;
	(c) the most senior member of the Panel belonging to the second largest opposition party;
	(d) the most senior Member of the House belonging to the Government party but not being a Minister of the Crown; and
	(e) the most senior Member of the House not belonging to the Government party who is not a front-bench spokesman for his party.
	(3) Where a Member who would otherwise be a member of the Committee of Nomination is unwilling to serve, the next most senior Member in the relevant category shall be nominated.
	(4) In sub-paragraphs (a) to (c) of paragraph (2) of this order, seniority shall consist of length of continuous service as a member of the Chairmen's Panel (other than as Chairman or Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means), and in sub-paragraphs (d) and (e) of that paragraph, seniority shall consist of length of continuous service as a Member of the House.
	(5) The Chairman of Ways and Means, or in his absence a Deputy Chairman, shall be chairman of the committee, but shall not vote.
	(6) The Chairman of Ways and Means shall report the membership of the committee to the House.
	(7) The quorum of the committee shall be seven when the committee is nominating select committees at the commencement of a Parliament and otherwise four, in either case including the chairman.
	(8) The committee shall have power to sit notwithstanding any adjournment of the House and to report from time to time.";
	(2) Standing Order No. 121 (Nomination of select committees) be amended as follows:
	Line 9, leave out paragraph (2) and add—
	"(2) Unless the House otherwise orders, no motion shall be made for the nomination of members of select committees, or for their discharge, unless—
	(a) notice of the motion has been given at least two sitting days previously; and
	(b) the motion is made on behalf of the Committee of Nomination by one of its members.
	(3) Unless the House otherwise orders, all Members nominated to a select committee shall continue to be members of that committee for the remainder of the Parliament (or for the period of existence of the committee, if that is a shorter period).";
	(3) Standing Order No. 15 (Exempted business) be amended, as follows:
	Line 16, leave out from "committees)" to "which" in line 20; and
	(4) Standing Orders be amended, as follows:
	Standing Order No. 139 (Select Committee on Broadcasting)
	Line 29, leave out paragraph (6);
	Standing Order No. 140 (Joint Committee on Consolidation, &c., Bills)
	Line 37, leave out paragraph (4);
	Standing Order No. 141 (Deregulation and Regulatory Reform Committee)
	Line 98, leave out paragraph (10);
	Standing Order No. 142 (Domestic Committees)
	Line 37, leave out paragraph (7);
	Standing Order No. 143 (European Scrutiny Committee)
	Line 80, leave out paragraph (13);
	Standing Order No. 144 (Finance and Services Committee)
	Line 29, leave out paragraph (5);
	Standing Order No. 145 (Liaison Committee)
	Line 27, leave out paragraph (4);
	Standing Order No. 146 (Select Committee on Public Administration)
	Line 20, leave out paragraph (3);
	Standing Order No. 147 (Procedure Committee)
	Line 11, leave out paragraph (4);
	Standing Order No. 148 (Committee of Public Accounts)
	Line 10, leave out paragraph (2);
	Standing Order No. 149 (Committee on Standards and Privileges)
	Line 26, leave out paragraph (3);
	Standing Order No. 151 (Statutory Instruments (Joint Committee))
	Line 126, leave out paragraph (11);
	Standing Order No. 152 (Select committees related to government departments)
	Line 34, leave out paragraph (5);
	Standing Order No. 152A (Environmental Audit Committee)
	Line 10, leave out paragraph (3);
	Standing Order No. 152B (Human rights (joint committee))
	Line 41, leave out paragraph (6);
	Standing Order No. 152C (Tax simplification (joint committee))
	Line 15, leave out paragraph (4).—[Mr. Robin Cook.]
	Amendment made: (a), in line 7, leave out 'nine' and insert 'thirteen'.—[Mr. Lloyd.]
	Amendment proposed: (d), in line 20, at end add 'and
	(f) two Members belonging to the Government party, one belonging to the party to which the Leader of the Opposition belongs, and one belonging to the second largest opposition party, in each case first elected to the House in the previous Parliament and proposed by the chairman of the relevant party.'.—[Mr. Lloyd.]
	Amendment made to the proposed amendment: (h), in line 4, after second 'the', insert 'current or'.— [Mr. Bryant.]
	Amendment, as amended, agreed to.
	Amendment made: (e), in line 21, after '(3)', insert 'In sub-paragraphs (a) to (c) of paragraph (2) of this order.'.—[Mr. Lloyd.]
	Main Question, as amended, put:—
	The House divided: Ayes 195, Noes 209.

Question accordingly negatived.

Gordon Prentice: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for Government Whips to stand outside the Lobby—[Interruption.]

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I cannot hear the hon. Gentleman's point of order.

Gordon Prentice: On a free vote, is it in order for the Government Whips to point to the No Lobby saying "PLP this way"?

Madam Deputy Speaker: I would hope that hon. Members would be able to make up their own mind.

PAYMENT FOR CHAIRMEN

Motion made, and Question put,
	That this House considers that there should be no differences in remuneration among Members who are not Ministers of the Crown beyond those already authorised.—[Stephen Twigg.]
	The House divided: Ayes 175, Noes 197.

Question accordingly negatived.

PAYMENT FOR CHAIRMEN

Motion made and Question put,
	That, in the opinion of this House, the Review Body on Senior Salaries should be invited to consider what additional remuneration is appropriate for chairmen of select committees.—[Mr. Robin Cook.]
	The House divided: Ayes 199, Noes 158.

Question accordingly agreed to.

SELECT COMMITTEES (No. 3)

Motion made, and Question proposed,
	That—
	(1) Standing Order No. 137A (Select committees: power to work with other committees) be amended as follows:
	Line 12, leave out "and";
	Line 15, at end insert—"and
	(d) to agree in the choice of a chairman for any concurrent meetings."; and
	(2) the following Standing Order (Term limits for chairmen of select committees) be made:
	"Unless the House otherwise orders, no select committee may choose as its chairman any Member who has served as chairman of that committee for the two previous Parliaments."—[Mr. Robin Cook.]
	Amendment made: (a), in line 11, at end add
	'or a continuous period of 8 years, whichever is the greater period.'.—[Mr. Greg Knight.]
	Main Question, as amended, put and agreed to.

TAX LAW REWRITE

Motion made and Question put,
	That the following changes to Standing Orders be made:
	Standing Order No. 60 (Tax simplification bills)
	Title, leave out 'simplification' and insert 'law rewrite'
	Lines 1, 9, 15, 22, 24, 29, leave out 'simplification' and insert 'law rewrite'
	Standing Order No 63 (Committal of bills)
	Line 2, leave out 'simplification' and insert 'law rewrite'
	Standing Order No. 152C (Tax simplification (Joint Committee))
	Title, leave out 'simplification' and insert 'law rewrite'
	Line 4, leave out 'simplification' and insert 'law rewrite' (in both places)—[Mr. Robin Cook.]
	Question agreed to.

JOINT COMMITTEE ON STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS

Motion made and Question put,
	That the following amendments to Standing Orders be made:
	Standing Order No. 151 [Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments]
	Line 19, leave out 'and'
	Line 19, leave out "of Schedule 1 to the Northern Ireland Act 1974" and insert "(1) of the Schedule to the Northern Ireland Act 2000".
	Line 20, leave out "under section 1 of the Deregulation and Contracting Out Act 1994 or"
	Line 24, after 'Act', insert 'and any remedial order or draft remedial order under Schedule 2 to the Human Rights Act 1998'.—[Mr. Robin Cook.]
	Question agreed to.

LIAISON COMMITTEE: POWER TO TAKE EVIDENCE

Motion made and Question proposed,
	That Standing Order No. 145 (Liaison Committee) be amended as follows:
	Line 12, at end insert '(1A) The Committee may also hear evidence from the Prime Minister on matters of public policy'.—[Mr. Robin Cook.]
	Amendment proposed: (a), in line 3, at end add
	', but such meetings shall only be attended by the Chairman of the Liaison Committee and the Chairmen of Select Committees appointed under S.O. Nos. 146 and 152.'.—[Mr. Bryant.]
	Question put, That the amendment be made:—
	The House divided: Ayes 78, Noes 261.

Question accordingly negatived.
	Main Question put and agreed to.

REGULATORY REFORM

Motion made, and Question put,
	That the following amendments to Standing Orders be made:
	Standing Order No. 141 (Deregulation and Regulatory Reform Committee)
	Title, leave out "Deregulation and"
	Line 22, leave out "Deregulation and"
	Line 5, leave out from "section" to "6" in line 7.
	Line 7, leave out "(the 2001 Act)"
	Line 10, leave out "1994 Act or section 1 of the 2001"
	Line 14, leave out "2001"
	Line 14, at end insert "(except those not made by a Minister of the Crown)".
	Line 58, leave out lines 58 to 60
	Standing Order No. 18 (Consideration of draft deregulation etc orders)
	Title, leave out "Deregulation, etc" and insert "regulatory reform"
	Line 1, leave out "Deregulation and"
	Line 4, leave out from "House" to "under" in line 6.
	Standing Order No. 98 (Scottish Grand Committee (delegated legislation))
	Line 14, leave out "deregulation order or"
	Standing Order No. 115 (Northern Ireland Grand Committee (delegated legislation))
	Line 15, leave out "deregulation order or"
	Standing Order No. 118 (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation)
	Line 13, leave out "deregulation order or"—[Mr. Robin Cook.]
	Question agreed to.

POWER TO EXCHANGE PAPERS WITH DEVOLVED LEGISLATURES

Motion made, and Question put,
	That Standing Order No. 137A (Select committees: power to work with other committees) be amended as follows:
	Line 6, after "Parliament" insert "or to the Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales or the Northern Ireland Assembly or to any of their Committees"
	Line 10, leave out "such"
	Line 11, after "sub-committee" insert "of either House of Parliament".—[Mr. Robin Cook.]
	Question agreed to.

Code of Conduct

Motion made, and Question proposed,
	That—
	(1) this House approves the Ninth Report from the Committee on Standards and Privileges, (House of Commons Paper No. 763), A new Code of Conduct and Guide to the Rules;
	(2) the Resolution of the House of 6th November 1995 relating to Conduct of Members shall be amended, at the end, by adding the words 'or any approach, whether oral or in writing, to Ministers or servants of the Crown';
	(3) the Resolution of the House of 6th November 1995 relating to Employment Agreements shall be redesignated 'Agreements for the Provision of Services;' and shall be amended, as follows:
	(a) by leaving out the words 'up to £1,000, £1,000–£5,000, £5,000–£10,000' in each of paragraphs (1), (2) and (3) and inserting the words 'up to £5,000, £5,001–£10,000';
	(b) after the word 'inspection' in each of paragraphs (1), (2) and (3), by inserting the words 'and reproduction';
	(c) at the end, by adding the words—
	'Provided that the requirement to deposit a copy of an agreement with the Commissioner shall not apply—
	(a) if the fees or benefits payable do not exceed one per cent. of the current parliamentary salary; nor
	(b) in the case of media work (but in that case the Member shall deposit a statement of the fees or benefits payable in the bands specified above)';
	(4) the Code of Conduct and the Guide to the Rules relating to the Conduct of Members (House of Commons Paper No. 688 (1995–96)) shall be amended as proposed in Annex 2 to the Report; and
	(5) the registration forms submitted for the next published Register of Members' interests shall comply with the new rules on the registration of Members' interests; and any requirement under the new rules to register an interest which is not registrable now shall come into force on the publication of the next Register.—[Mrs. McGuire.]

George Young: I invite the House to endorse the new code of conduct and guide to the rules on the conduct of Members that the Standards and Privileges Committee has drawn up. I am grateful to the Leader of the House for finding time to resolve this matter so soon after the publication of our report.
	The last time that I spoke as Chairman of the Standards and Privileges Committee was the debate in February when we appointed Philip Mawer as the new Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards. Mr. Mawer has now taken up his appointment, made an excellent start and is fully in command of his role. He is working the full three days a week for which he was appointed, and if his duties require him to do more, more will be done. He has already dealt with several complaints and the Committee entirely endorsed the conclusions that he reached in the one case that he brought to us. However, I do not want to place too much emphasis on investigations. I hope that Mr. Mawer will continue to develop a new strategy that gives priority to advice and prevention, of which clear guidance is a key component; that is where the revised code of conduct and guide to the rules come in.
	The changes that we have proposed are intended to simplify and clarify the guidance that is provided for Members; to alleviate unnecessary burdens without compromising the transparency and effectiveness of the system; and, where practicable, to align the House's rules more closely with those of the Electoral Commission. The new code and guide have gone through a lengthy gestation period. The former Committee began the work of revision more than two years ago, and it introduced many of the detailed changes shortly before the last election, but the two most radical changes are the work of the new Committee and are recommended in this report.
	The first change relates to the advocacy rule, which bans Members from paid lobbying. As the rule stands, a Member may not initiate a parliamentary proceeding—for example, by tabling a question or applying for an Adjournment debate—that relates specifically and directly to the affairs of a body, or of a wider group, in which the Member has a pecuniary interest. The rule was introduced with the best of intentions, but in practice it has imposed unreasonable and unnecessary restrictions on Members' parliamentary activities.
	When the new Committee was established at the beginning of this Parliament, we became aware of a degree of feeling, both inside and outside the House, about the rule's restrictive effects. Shortly before Christmas, we published a consultation paper seeking views on two possible options for relaxing the rule. We decided to adopt the recommendation from the Committee on Standards in Public Life to the effect that the rules on initiation should be relaxed and brought into line with the more lenient rules on participation in a proceeding initiated by another Member. If the House agrees to this change, from now on the only restriction on Members' freedom of action will be that they must not seek to confer benefit exclusively on a body in which they have a pecuniary interest. That interest must, of course, be properly registered and declared.
	I believe that the change will be welcomed especially in the context of travel overseas. Hon. Members have a duty to keep themselves informed about what is going on in the wider world. Often the only way to do that is when foreign Governments or other organisations outside the House pay for the travel. From now on, hon. Members who travel abroad at someone else's expense will be able to make full use in the House of what they have learned. They will not face difficulties in tabling questions or introducing Adjournment debates that are relevant to their visit. That will help them and, I believe, the House.
	Our second fundamental reform is that there should be a realistic de minimis threshold for the registration of interests. We do not want the Register of Members' Interests to be cluttered with low-value entries; nor do we want the complaints process to be brought into disrepute by allegations of failure to register relatively insignificant interests.
	The solution that we propose is to take such items out of the scope of registration altogether by setting a threshold of 1 per cent. of the parliamentary salary. At present, that amounts to about £550. Below that threshold, interests would not have to be registered. That means that hon. Members need no longer register gifts or hospitality that are worth less than £550. However, benefits from a single source that individually are worth less than £550 should be registered if, cumulatively, they amount to more than 1 per cent. of salary in a calendar year.
	The change in the rule also means that earned income, including directorships, needs to be registered only if it exceeds 1 per cent. of salary. The requirement to deposit an agreement with the commissioner if an hon. Member is providing parliamentary services of any kind will also be dropped if the remuneration does not exceed 1 per cent. of salary.
	Finally, I shall refer briefly to some of the detailed changes to the rules that we are proposing. Hon. Members will see that these are highlighted in red type in the proposed new guide and code that is printed as an annexe to the report.
	The rules relating to sponsorship have been revised substantially and now cover donations to constituency associations that are linked to an hon. Member's candidacy or membership of the House, as well as other support that an hon. Member receives in his capacity as a Member of the House, with a threshold of £1,000. That takes account of the changed nature of trade union sponsorship, and of the reporting requirements of the Electoral Commission.
	In common with other one-off benefits, such as gifts and hospitality, donations to constituency associations will be removed from the Register of Members' Interests after a year. Such donations will be registerable only if they are expressly tied to the hon. Member by name—an example might be contributions to an hon. Member's fighting fund—or are donations that have been solicited for the party by the hon. Member. Donations to constituency associations that are not linked to the hon. Member but which are an expression of general political support will not have to be registered.
	We have clarified the circumstances in which land and property, including houses, that is rented out may need to be registered. There are new rules on the registration of shareholdings. A shareholding wil be registerable in future if it amounts to more than 15 per cent. of the company's share capital, rather then 1 per cent. A shareholding of 15 per cent. or less will be registerable if it is worth more than an hon. Member's parliamentary salary.
	Until now, the threshold for registration has been a nominal value of £25,000, but the nominal value often bears no relation to the real value. The Committee believes that it is not unreasonable to require hon. Members to revalue their large shareholdings once each year for the purposes of the register. After all, an hon. Member is likely to have few holdings that are registerable, and the end of the tax year is a convenient time to check what they are worth.
	The rules covering political journalism, speaking engagements and other forms of media work connected to membership of the House have been greatly simplified. The requirement to deposit an employment agreement, which in many cases simply did not fit the relationship between the hon. Member and the outside body, has been dropped altogether. However, hon. Members will still have to declare in the register their income from this source, in the appropriate band.
	The new Committee is working alongside Philip Mawer, the new commissioner, with this new strategy, a new code of conduct and a new register. I appreciate that it is less than a year since hon. Members had to fill in their registration forms at the start of this Parliament, but if we are going to have a new register it will be in everyone's interest to have one that reflects the new rules as soon as possible.
	Shortly after the forthcoming recess, the commissioner will write to every hon. Member. He will send a copy of the new code and guide, a registration form and details of the seminars arranged to explain the new rules to hon. Members. There will also be guidance about how to complete the registration form. Hon. Members will be asked to return their forms before the summer recess, so that the new register can be published in the autumn.
	The registration form should be completed in accordance with the new rules, so hon. Members will be able to delete from their current entries the minor benefits that fall below the 1 per cent. threshold. However, I hope that the House will look especially carefully at the new rules on sponsorships and shareholdings, which have been changed, and also on land and property, on which the guidance has been clarified.
	If the House agrees to the motion, the new code and guide will come into force and the relaxation of the advocacy rule and the higher thresholds for the registration of benefits will apply immediately. However, any requirement under the new rules to register an interest that is not registrable under the current rules—for example, with some shareholdings—will not come into force until the new register is published, so all Members will have a reasonable period in which to ensure that their entries comply with the new rules.
	I strongly encourage any Member who may be in any doubt about how the new rules will apply to him or her to seek the advice of either the Standards Commissioner or the Registrar of Members' Interests, who will be glad to help.
	I believe that the changes that we have recommended will give the House clearer, simpler rules that are, in some respects, less onerous for Members to comply with, but still rigorous and consistent with the fundamental principles that the House adopted when it implemented the Nolan reforms in 1995–96. We have, of course, asked the Wicks committee for its comments on what is proposed.
	My committee will keep all these changes actively under review. I ask the House to support the changes.

Stephen Twigg: I am sure that the whole House will join me in welcoming the report from the Committee on Standards and Privileges and thanking the Committee and all its members for their work.
	Last year, the House agreed with the Committee on Standards in Public Life that a senior Opposition Member should be Chair of the Committee on Standards and Privileges. The impartiality of that Committee is clearly very important, and I am pleased that it is so clearly demonstrated in this report. I cannot imagine a person better fitted for the post than the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young).
	The report and the consultation papers on which it is based speak for themselves. We need to ensure that we uphold the highest standards and that our work is not hampered by rules that inadvertently prohibit legitimate parliamentary activity. We should not forget that the purpose of having a code in the first place is to make sure that our standards are high; it is not a substitute for, or a shelter from, the criminal law. It is important that Members have the freedoms needed to operate effectively. The main freedom that we have is the freedom of speech necessary to enable us to pursue matters in the House or through its Committees. In the United Kingdom, our immunity extends only as far as formal proceedings in Parliament. The Committee on Standards and Privileges has made it clear that it expects the commissioner to refer any cases where it appears that a Member may have broken the law to the police. It has added that if the commissioner failed to call in the police, it would do so. I am sure that we all welcome that. If we always remembered that, and took pains to make it clear, it might ensure that some of the wider public debate on standards kept a proper sense of perspective.
	As the right hon. Gentleman said, the most important change proposed today is the reform of the advocacy rule. This is not a thoughtless change aimed at making life easier for MPs. Our current rules have been widely criticised, not only in the House but by knowledgeable outsiders, for being overly stringent. It has become apparent that although the broad thrust of the rule is correct, and it is right to have a blanket prohibition on what the Committee graphically describes as
	"lobbying for consideration or reward"
	its very breadth has caused some problems. That was well illustrated by the controversy surrounding the appointment of the hon. Member for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown) to the Opposition Front Bench, but it has also been picked up by the non-parliamentary Committee on Standards in Public Life when reviewing its earlier work.
	The advocacy rule is an important safeguard, but as the Neill committee, as it then was, noted, when it operates too stringently it can prevent Members from dealing with precisely the subjects about which we are most knowledgeable. The proposed new rules should ensure that lobbying for reward or consideration remains completely banned, yet allow Members to deal with matters of genuine and general interest.
	The introduction of a system for rectifying minor or inadvertent failures to register is also welcome, as is the Committee's willingness to censure those who come forward with frivolous or partisan complaints.
	I also welcome the right hon. Gentleman's remarks to the Wicks committee last week, when he said that he and his Committee wished to do more on education, prevention and advice-giving. I am sure that that will help us all.
	We must, as a House, try to uphold the highest standards. We must deal severely with those who knowingly fail to do so, but we must also accept that none of us is infallible and ensure that the system operates in a way that punishes the seriously guilty while helping the merely misguided to do better next time. I am convinced that these proposals will assist us in that, and I commend them to the House.

Eric Forth: I very much agree with the Minister's remarks, both in their content and context. I welcome the report produced by my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young) and his Committee. Let the House not underestimate the difficulty of the work of the Committee on Standards and Privileges. The Committee strives to strike a tricky balance between the desire of many to see the application of the strictest possible standards to the House and those who want standards that are sensible, workable and, indeed, comprehensible to Members themselves.
	The code of conduct—vital and central as it is—should never be seen as set in stone, as some permanent oracle; it must be flexible and something to which we can return from time to time, and the Committee is right to have done so. In the previous Parliament, the Committee struggled with both the advocacy rule and the limits on gifts and hospitality and found it difficult to reach a conclusion. I very much welcome the fact that the new Committee, under my right hon. Friend, has managed to pick its way through the thicket and emerge with sensible, practical and balanced proposals on those matters.
	I always thought that it was—and still is—ridiculous to suggest that Members of Parliament can be suborned or bribed by trivial gifts and hospitality. The suggested new limits are a move in the right direction and refute that suggestion.
	I simply want to acknowledge the work of the Committee and to recommend to my colleagues and to the House that we adopt the proposals, but that we continue to monitor them closely to ensure that they reassure the public and us that we are adhering to proper standards and that we shall continue to do so.

Andrew MacKinlay: I am not entirely comfortable with the proposals—I have some reservations.
	I fully accept that the overwhelming majority of hon. Members—if not all of us—would not consciously be influenced by the chance of a free trip from a particular Government or interest group. However, human nature being what it is, it is much more difficult—despite one's intentions—not to be influenced by the warmth, hospitality and kindness that is offered when one goes abroad at the invitation of a Government. That is manifestly true and can occur almost unconsciously.
	We are going about the problem in the wrong way, however. Parliament should not say—as it is saying—that we cannot get full travel budgets for Members of Parliament from the public purse—

Eric Forth: What?

Andrew MacKinlay: If the right hon. Gentleman can contain himself, I shall finish my point.
	Our travel budget is not comparable to that of similar legislatures in other countries, where the facility is at the discretion of the Member and he or she can travel unhindered—independent of a host Government. Our system is deficient in that respect.
	When the right hon. Gentleman intervened, perhaps the fact had crossed his mind that recently we agreed a provision that allowed MPs to visit European Union states, or EU applicant states, up to three times a year, provided that they touched base with the Parliament of that state. The provision is confined to those countries.

Eric Forth: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Andrew MacKinlay: I promise that I shall give way when I have completed this point.
	That provision offers an adequate travel budget for Members who want to learn more about the EU or its applicant states, but it does not allow us to visit Israel, Palestine, the People's Republic of China, the Koreas or the United States of America; it applies only to EU countries or EU applicants. We should have allowed an extension of that provision, with stringent ground rules, so that any hon. Member could make such visits—perhaps up to three times a year. If we had, we would not need to relax the advocacy rule. We could visit any country in the world at the invitation of a Government or interest group without breaching the advocacy rule.

Eric Forth: The hon. Gentleman may be surprised to learn that I rather agree with him. However, why did he not table an amendment to the motion that was on the Order Paper the other day to make this point and to allow the House to vote on it? Why did he allow that restrictive measure that he is criticising, on grounds with which I rather agree, to pass through the House unamended and without even a vote?

Andrew MacKinlay: I beat my breast three times—mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. One often wishes that one had amended a motion. However, I regret that personal circumstances have meant that I have not been around as much as I would have wanted in the past couple of weeks. I accept the right hon. Gentleman's admonishment and that is why I said in carefully crafted terms that I wished to express my reservations about this motion.
	I do not suppose that this will be the end of the tale. I hope and imagine that we will revisit the issue. The compelling case for not restricting hon. Members to visiting European Union or accession countries just three times a year should be reconsidered. If we do that, I hope that we will also reconsider the relaxation of the advocacy rule. In my view, it is not the right way to go about the problem.
	I also wish to make another confession. In the past, I was one of those who often included things in the register that now appear in the category of frivolous. I did not register those things in a frivolous way, but as an open declaration. For example, I put down the fact that I was the honorary patron of Tilbury Town football club, but my local newspaper, the Evening Echo, described me as a director of the club. As much as I love the club, it is not the most sexy place in the world or the most wonderful football club. It is wonderful to me, but its immediate prospects of reaching the premiership are not enormous. I made a declaration, but it was trivialised.
	I raise that point because I listened to the Chairman of the Standards and Privileges Committee and it struck me that we should all be very sensible and not register such things in future. The previous form invited us to declare non-pecuniary interests, and we declared them for a variety of reasons. For example, we could show our pride in our association with a particular organisation or to show our breadth of interests. However, the guidance and instructions that we are about to receive should make it clear that we are registering our pecuniary interests and not the wider interests that can often be malevolently twisted or inadvertently confused for pecuniary interests.
	I hope that the Chairman of the Committee will take that point on board. What was an invitation hitherto to make a wide declaration of one's enthusiasm and support for various organisations should now go. Perhaps there should be a separate document to show the scope of one's enthusiasms for organisations. We should not muddy the waters by making such declarations in the register of pecuniary interests.

Paul Tyler: I do not intend to follow the argument of the hon. Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay) in great detail, but I have some sympathy for the points that he has just made. When I was the Liberal Democrat spokesman on food, I received a large Wensleydale cheese. As that was not a major event attracting much publicity, I thought that the best way to advertise the fact that the home of Wallace and Gromit was alive and well and producing excellent cheese was to declare the fact in the Register of Members' Interests. Unfortunately, the gift was not considered a sufficient financial inducement, so I was prevented from declaring it—but the hon. Gentleman is right. We must take the register seriously. If we allow it to be used in a frivolous way, we will debase the whole exercise.
	The point that I wanted to make was about timing. The report is workmanlike, and I give full credit to the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young) and his Committee. It is always difficult to know the right moment to produce a review. However, I suggest that this is an odd moment to produce one, because the right hon. Gentleman himself, the Leader of the House, the Conservative Front-Bench spokesman, the Father of the House, my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) and the hon. Member for Worthing, West (Peter Bottomley) all gave evidence—either last week or at the beginning of this week—to the Wicks committee. It is considering the whole strategy of how we regulate ourselves—or, indeed, whether we should regulate ourselves at all. This is an odd moment to introduce the proposals not just for debate but for decision, given that those discussions will continue for several weeks, and possibly for months.
	I accept that timing is a problem. Clearly, there was a need to make our rules compatible with those of the Electoral Commission. That probably could not wait. I hope that the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire will respond briefly to the debate and will tell us whether there really is an imperative.

Tam Dalyell: I listened carefully to the impressive evidence that the hon. Gentleman gave to the Wicks committee last Wednesday. I was there throughout the day and I got the impression from its members' line of questioning that they had already made up their minds against self-regulation. Was that his impression?

Paul Tyler: The Father of the House has an advantage over me: he sat there right through the whole day—in fact, two days. I did not, but all those to whom I have spoken who gave evidence certainly seem to have gained that impression. I hope that it is not right, and that the committee is reaching its view unprejudiced by any presumption of whether it would be right to change the basis on which we in the House regulate our conduct. However, if that impression is true, it is even more peculiar that we should be taking steps today to review the rules, however peripheral they may be.
	In fact, the rules are not peripheral. I give credit to the Standards and Privileges Committee and its Chairman, because tidying up the question of advocacy is central to that Committee's role and to the way in which we operate in the House. Reference has already been made to the fact that real experience and expertise were being effectively excluded from the workings of the House by the way in which the advocacy rule was interpreted. That is critical to the work of the House.
	If we are preventing people from bringing their knowledge and experience to the work of Parliament, that is a serious issue. It is not peripheral, nor is it peripheral to deal with such provisions, which the Chairman of the Committee properly describes as being de minimis. De minimis, by its very nature, is a relative term. If we are to have a de minimis provision, I hope that it will remove some of the overload on the register and the investigative system. That is extremely important.
	My concern is simply about timing. I wonder whether this is the right moment even to clarify, let alone to relax, the remit of the Standards and Privileges Committee and the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, as we are being reviewed by the Wicks committee.

Tom Levitt: As a member of the Standards and Privileges Committee, I accept the hon. Gentleman's point about timing. In a sense, there is never a right time. Ideally, it would have been good for the new Parliament to have started a year ago with a new set of rules. The proposals have been made partly because a body of evidence and experience has built up and led us to believe that the time is right, and partly because it is probably not a bad idea to coincide with the beginning of the new commissioner's term. So all sorts of features are involved. In addition, Wicks is not concentrating on the issues before us tonight; he is considering the structures rather than the content of the rules, certainly at present.

Paul Tyler: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that very helpful intervention, but I think that he would agree that the structure and the tactics—the details of which we are concerned with this evening—interrelate at the very least.
	The right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire said in his introduction that such matters would be kept under review. He also said that he had made a submission to the Committee on Standards in Public Life—the Wicks committee. I must accept that that is probably our best way forward at this stage. It would be rather absurd to leave things hanging in the air for several months until the completion of the Wicks committee's review.
	I hope that we are making it clear this evening—perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would make it clear himself—that the proposals are provisional and transitional and that Parliament still has to face the big issues. Incidentally, it is important not just to have compatibility with the Electoral Commission; I hope that we will have compatibility with the House of Lords, too, in due course. However the other place is reformed in future, it would be ridiculous if one set of rules applied here and quite another applied at the other end of the building. Again, the right hon. Gentleman may like to address that point.
	Given assurances, which I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will be prepared to give, that the proposals for review, and—it must be said—for relaxation, are being made only for the time being, and that he and his Committee will be prepared to enter into a dialogue with the House as well as with the Wicks committee in due course, I am prepared to accept them. Without those assurances, however, I would be bound to say that I find the timing most inappropriate.

David Winnick: If I register a slight note of dissent it is because I would not wish it to be felt that all of us necessarily agree with the recommendations of the Standards and Privileges Committee. I shall not, like my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay), try to force a vote. No purpose would be served by that. The matter is not of such substance that a vote would be justified. I am somewhat uneasy, however, so it is only right and proper that, as a Member of the House, I should say so.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) said in his intervention that the Committee on Standards in Public Life might come to the view that self-regulation should come to an end. I do not know what recommendations it will make—my hon. Friend may have far better knowledge of that than I do—but if it does recommend that, it will be our fault. I do not want to recount all that happened in relation to the dismissal, as I would describe it, of the last Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, but my view is that that led to a number of questions being raised in the minds of a good many people involved with integrity and honesty in public life, not only in Parliament.

Tony McWalter: Will my hon. Friend accept that the previous parliamentary commissioner was given a virtually impossible job, and that the new parliamentary commissioner may have a more sensible job as a result?

David Winnick: I have made it clear both in debate and in correspondence that I wish the new parliamentary commissioner well. I genuinely mean that. He is in no way responsible for what happened previously, and it would be quite wrong to hold what happened to Mrs. Filkin against him in any way whatever. I want to put that clearly on record.
	I also have great respect for the members and Chairman of the Standards and Privileges Committee. Self- regulation is always difficult. Passing judgment on one's colleagues, especially if they are in one's own party, is a job that not many would wish to do, but it is part and parcel of self-regulation. After all, in the medical profession, for example, if a member of a General Medical Council panel discussing a disciplinary case knew the person against whom the complaint was being made, we can rest assured that that panel member would not take part in those proceedings.
	As for the proposals in front of us, I have reservations about the fact that a sum of £550 will not have to be declared if we agree to the report. Members may say, "What is £550 these days?" As has been pointed out, it is 1 per cent. of our salary. To many people outside, however—certainly to many of my constituents—£550 is quite a large sum. If the argument is, "We don't want to litter the register with smaller sums," I understand that.
	I hope that I will not be misunderstood—there is always a danger of sounding pious—but I would say, "Why accept gifts to the value of £550?" I do not want to give the impression that I am showered with gifts all the time in my constituency or elsewhere, but like most Members, I may be kindly offered a box of chocolates, for example, because of casework that I have done. Clearly, although I would not want to enter that gift in the register, I would explain that I much appreciate what is being offered and I accept it, but that, without wishing to be discourteous, I will give the gift—as would most if not all Members—to the local hospital. The important thing is not to be under any obligation. One could ask what obligation a Member would be under for £550, but that sum still seems too large to me.

Peter Bottomley: Some people think that Members of Parliament should have no outside earnings, and to them the debate might seem beside the point. Although such a rule is not proposed, if it were, it would be impractical. For example, what would happen to a writer or a farmer? Are those people seriously suggesting that the only people who should come into the House of Commons are those who have no continuing interests that they want to maintain? I remember that when Peter Thurnham was out of work, he set up an engineering firm to give him a living. To ask such a person to give up his family-owned firm to become a Member of Parliament strikes me as wrong. Although we need a code of conduct that regulates hon. Members' outside interests, it is also true that many of our non-remunerated interests may cost us quite a lot, and bias us in favour of a particular interest or organisation far more than the possibility of receiving £550, or twice that sum.
	The only part of the remarks of my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young) that I would rephrase is the idea that giving advice is a new strategy. It is clear from the second commissioner's words and work that she gave a great deal of advice not only to members of the public who had queries about the behaviour of Members of Parliament and possible complaints, but to Members of Parliament who approached her. The registrar also gave advice to Members of Parliament who requested it.
	It was plain from one or two of the cases considered by the Standards and Privileges Committee that if the behaviour of a Member of Parliament could be judged to contradict the code of practice or the requirements of the register, a complaint would not be upheld had he or she taken the advice of the commissioner or the registrar. I am glad that the third commissioner is following that strategy. Sir Gordon Downey created that principle when he was the first commissioner, and he would have wanted it maintained.
	Now is not the time to re-run our debate about the appointment of Philip Mawer as commissioner. I note the remarks of the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler), but if the House is arguing for a continuation of self-regulation, we should make a change that we regard as sensible, on which we have consulted and received the advice of the Wicks committee, despite the fact that the committee's review is still taking place—not only because it is right in itself, but because the issues that the committee is considering go further than the changes to the code of conduct and the advocacy rule. If experience shows that we are right and the Committee on Standards in Public Life is, in our view, wrong, and we maintain our independent regulation, with an independent commissioner to help us, it is important that the committee does not, for example, recommend that we bring in outsiders for a tribunal, including lawyers, because we have already rejected that proposal. It is important that we avoid such repetition.
	When the Wicks committee interviewed me, I thought that its members approached the subject with open minds. I must tell the Father of the House, the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell), that I did not get the idea, either on the day before I gave evidence or on the day that I went before the committee, that its members approached the subject with their minds made up. I may be wrong, but that was my impression.
	I told the committee that I have the strong view, as my right hon. Friend spelt out, that neither the commissioner nor the Committee on Standards and Privileges considers criminal action. The procedures of the commissioner and the committee would halt were there to be any serious suggestion of even potential criminal charges. That is one of the reasons why I say clearly to the House that there is no question of Members being asked to incriminate themselves when they are asked or required to assist the commissioner in considering a query or complaint, or when they are helping the Committee on Standards and Privileges in its consideration of a commissioner's report and possible further action.
	If there is no crime, there is no incrimination. There is the House of Commons obligation to co-operate with the process from beginning to end, by fulfilling the requirements of the register, which we shall adapt this evening, and by answering questions from the commissioner, whether or not the Member concerned thinks that the commissioner has the right to ask those questions. "Answer the questions" is the best advice that the House can give to any Member involved. The experience of some of our colleagues who have had questions raised, who have co-operated and adjusted their register entry and, in some cases, apologised for getting things wrong—or for not getting them quite right—is that the House, the general public and their constituents have not made much of a fuss about it. We all have to learn from that experience.

Tam Dalyell: Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that it is his view that there should be no judgment or leak until a final judgment is arrived at?

Peter Bottomley: Yes, but I disagree with those who have publicly or privately said that the second commissioner or her office leaked information of that nature. Most of the time, when information came out which should not have done, I believe that it came from the Member complained of or from people around him or her. In a number of examples that has been demonstrated to be true, although in some cases one cannot demonstrate it. I have spent some time listening to journalists, especially those few who have watched the standards process, and not one has suggested to me that any information ever came improperly from the commissioner or her office.
	The change in the limit to £550 is reasonably sensible. It could have been half that sum, but I do not think it should be much higher. I am glad that we are to sweep away the rather ridiculous declarations that one has received £25 from a research organisation, which may then have been passed on to a charity. Such declarations of sums up to £500 are misleading and unnecessary. I would advise hon. Members—this is the only part of my behaviour that I commend to others—that if they are to co-operate with a research organisation, it is far better not to take the money, even to give it to a charity. If we want to help a research organisation, we ought to take 15 minutes or even an hour to do so without any money changing hands at all. It is demeaning for Members of Parliament to give the impression that they will co-operate with research in association with, although not quite on condition of, the payment of such sums. That is unnecessary and sends the wrong signals.
	I hope that the standards process becomes pretty dull and uninteresting. A number of the higher profile cases in the past were associated with newspaper investigations, or concerned a Member failing to co-operate with the commissioner's inquires and the Committee on Standards and Privileges. There were also other high profile cases that I do not want to go into this evening.
	I have a comment to place on the record that I hope the Prime Minister picks up. The incorporation of the Members' code of conduct into the ministerial code, as announced by the Leader of the House when he appeared in front of the Wicks committee, was welcome and overdue. In many senses, it flatly contradicted the Prime Minister's answer to me during oral questions two or three weeks beforehand. I put the point to him, and he said that if there was a complaint about Ministers it should be put to the normal authorities in the normal way. The Prime Minister is the only person who invigilates the ministerial code, and he ought to have known that. I am sorry that on the spur of the moment he gave an answer that displayed his lack of understanding of the importance of what Ministers do.
	I add to that this codicil: if Ministers at any time again fail to co-operate as fully as possible, or if officials of a political party fail to do so, as has happened recently, the Prime Minister, as leader both of his party and of the Government, should sack the Minister without question on the first day. That would enable the commissioner to discharge his or her duties even by working only three days a week—Elizabeth Filkin could have done so—and the House would not have had its reputation besmirched by the impression, which I share, that someone who gets close to people close to the Prime Minister is likely to suffer from whispering and direct action. I wish that I did not have to make that accusation in the House.

Tam Dalyell: Instant first-day sacking without the opportunity to examine the facts seems a bit reckless. When I interrupted the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler), I said that my impression—it was no more than that—from questions asked by the Wicks committee was that perhaps it was against self-regulation. My hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (David Winnick) is right; none of us can know exactly how it will report, as it will make that decision in the fullness in time. I have just one question for my hon. Friend the Minister, if I can have his attention for a moment. Why are we debating the code of conduct tonight? If I were Sir Nigel Wicks or one of his colleagues, I would be pretty cheesed off about that apparent fait accompli.
	In fact, the interrogation conducted by the busy people who serve on the Wicks committee was extremely fascinating, as they asked several questions that had not occurred to many of us who had to try to answer them on the spur on the moment. All credit to them, but can we not keep the subject in cold storage until the committee has reported? We cannot take up the time of the busy, highly pressured members of the Wicks committee when, at the end of the day, they seem to have wasted their time because we have made up our minds anyway.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: As the Parliamentary Secretary was kind enough to give me advance warning that he would cite my case, perhaps I should begin by declaring my farming and agricultural interest, as recorded in the Register of Members' Interests, which led to a recommendation of the Committee on Standards and Privileges. I thank you, Mr. Speaker, for your role in my case; I also thank the Committee Chairman, my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young) and members of the Committee for looking at the evidence that I submitted, considering it impartially and coming up with recommendations in the report to change the rules on initiation and advocacy.
	It is worth putting on the record what happened to me, as it is an example of the way in which a rule drafted too restrictively can have unintended consequences. When the leader of the Opposition asked me to become a Front-Bench spokesman on agriculture, part of his reason for doing so, I believe, was my first-hand knowledge of the farming industry. While I was aware that under the rules on the declaration of Members' interests and advocacy there might be a problem, I had no idea of the scale of the difficulty that would confront me. With that in mind, to prepare for Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs questions on 18 October 2001, and to be certain that I had complied with the rules correctly, I sought advice on 17 October from David Doig, the then Registrar of Members' Interests. In summary, his advice was that my first oral question would have to be preceded by a full declaration of my interests; let me say straight away that I have no problem whatsoever with making a full and absolute declaration of my interests at every opportunity. Although it was not an absolute requirement in the rules, David Doig strongly recommended—with a general caveat that all farming issues are inter-related—that any subsequent question that I asked, particularly one relating to arable farming, should be accompanied by a similar declaration.
	The parallel set of rules, the advocacy rules, stated at that time that
	"a Member who has a pecuniary benefit from a body or individual outside Parliament may not initiate any Parliamentary proceeding which relates specifically and directly to the affairs and interests of that body or individual".
	As you are aware from my subsequent letter and meeting with you, Mr. Speaker, that would have prevented me at the time from signing any Opposition motion or amendment, proposing or opening any debate or tabling any written question—not just a written question with an "R" by my name, but any written question. Given that I am not just a farmer but represent a large rural constituency with many farming interests, the rules would effectively have prevented me from asking questions on behalf of my constituents.
	In my letter to you, Mr. Speaker, I went on:
	"In essence this meant that my job as an Opposition Agriculture Spokesman was unworkable and untenable. I believe the same problem would also apply to any back-bencher from any party."

Tam Dalyell: Will the hon. Gentleman allow me?

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: If I may complete the quote from my letter to the Speaker, I shall happily give way to the hon. Gentleman.
	My letter continued:
	"It seems that anyone who has had any sort of commercial interest prior to coming into the House and continues to hold that interest as a Member of Parliament would have great difficulty in using the expert knowledge that they have gained, which might be of benefit to their constituents, party and to the function of the House in general.
	I consider that the rules are unnecessarily restrictive. There must be a difference between general advocacy of a topic and specific advocacy of a particular interest where a Member stands to benefit, personally or financially; for example, in my case a general advocacy of agriculture as distinct from calling for a specific subsidy that would benefit my business."
	I cannot believe that when the rules were drafted, that was the intended consequence. I fully accept that there must be a balance between Members' declaration of interests and public confidence in the integrity of Members of Parliament. However, I do not believe that with that interpretation of the rules as they stood at that time the balance was correct.
	I give way to the Father of the House.

Tam Dalyell: How did the rules put the hon. Gentleman in that position, but allow Michael Jopling to be an Agriculture Minister?

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: I have pondered that question. I am not sure whether the rules were the same at the time, but that is the advice that I got from the Registrar of Members' Interests concerning the interpretation of the rules in the case of somebody in my position who had a pecuniary interest in farming. I was informed by the registrar that, with the rules as they stood, the same restrictions on initiation and advocacy would have applied to a practising doctor taking a job as a health spokesman, or to a teacher taking a job as an education spokesman.

Tom Levitt: The hon. Gentleman is performing a service by reminding the House of the reasons behind the change in the rules. I think I am right in saying that the present rules date back to 1996, so they would not have caught the Jopling case. It is also worth putting it on record that the Sheldon case at about this time last year was at the front of our minds when we were formulating the recommendations, which, as the hon. Gentleman said, were prompted by his experience.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that clarification. The position was as I suggested to the Father of the House.
	Having put on record what the problem was, I wrote to you, Mr. Speaker, and you kindly asked me to come and see you. We had a full and frank discussion about the matter, and you asked me to write in the same terms to the Chairman of the Standards and Privileges Committee, which I did. The Committee examined the matter, considered my first evidence and my subsequent evidence, and came up with two possibilities. One was the disproportionate benefit rule, and the other the less onerous exclusive benefit rule, which, as the Chairman said, would prevent a Member from seeking to confer a benefit exclusively on a body in which he had or expected to have a pecuniary interest.
	I suspect that the House will return to that definition, as its precise meaning is still unclear. In my case, would I fall foul of it if I were to ask from the Front Bench for a subsidy for arable farmers from which I would benefit, even if a large number of my constituents would also benefit and had been asking me to lobby for such a measure? I am not certain about that and I think that the House will need to revisit the subject, although it is clearer than it was. To that extent, I am grateful to the Chairman of the Standards and Privileges Committee.
	Why have I raised this subject? A fundamental matter of principle is involved, and it was raised earlier, during the previous debate. What do we want in this House? Do we want to be bumbling amateurs or do we want people to come into the House who have real knowledge of the outside world? I suggest that we want Members to come into the House with real knowledge of the outside world. That serves Parliament and this country well. I do not think that we want professional politicians who do not have experience of the outside world. One of the great strengths of the other place is that whatever it is debating, there are people of nationally—if not internationally—renowned reputation in the field in question. That is what enhances and gives quality to debates in the other place.

Alan Williams: The word "exclusive" refers to whether an exclusive benefit would be conferred in terms of the interest that the hon. Member in question had found to be personally registrable. It would not apply to a generic group including all arable farmers. That is the difference. There is a paradox that we have not addressed and which I regard as nonsensical: hon. Members could speak against their own interest, but if they had not declared it, they would be in breach of the rules. Even though they had spoken against their interest, they would be in breach of the rules for having spoken about it at all.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for trying to clarify the matter, but let me throw the issue back at him. Suppose I was a member of the National Farmers Union as a farmer with a pecuniary interest in farming, and was advocating a specific topic on which the union had lobbied me and which would confer an "exclusive benefit" on a trade or body, to use the words of the report. Would I fall foul or not?

Alan Williams: rose—

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: It appears that the right hon. Gentleman is going to tell me.

Alan Williams: If the Member was the sole operator in the trade, the answer would be yes; if he was not the sole operator, the answer would be no.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that clarification. When people get into problems subsequently, they may look back at his words, which might help to provide clarification.
	I think that I have adequately described my situation. If the House accepts the report and the change on rules and initiation, it will be doing the country and our constituents a service. I recommend and endorse the change and thank the Chairman and his Committee.

Ross Cranston: I am a member of the Standards and Privileges Committee and want briefly to express my support for the recommendations.
	The major change that we are recommending relates to the advocacy rule, which the hon. Member for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown) has just addressed. In fact, it was his problem that brought clearly to mind the fact that the rule had become unworkable. We propose that the advocacy rule be the rule that was originally recommended by what is now called the Wicks committee—the Committee on Standards in Public Life. We are doing nothing more than adopting the approach of what is now the Wicks committee as a method of ensuring that legitimate parliamentary activity is permitted.
	We could sum up the other changes that the report recommends by saying that they attempt to simplify and update the rules in various ways. One effect is to reduce the number of registrable interests by introducing a £550 limit, to which I shall refer shortly. I emphasise that the recommendations will tighten the rules—for example, those that apply to property that hon. Members own. They should therefore consider that carefully. The rules on shareholdings have also been tightened. A new definition brings partners within the scope of the rules, and that definition now refers not only to spouses. The changes do not all constitute relaxation of the rules; some are tightened. We are trying to update the rules—the rule on partners is an example of that—and also to simplify them.
	I want to comment on the points that hon. Members made in the debate. First, the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler) and my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) asked why the recommendations were being made now when the Wicks committee is considering the matter. We are examining the substance of the code, whereas the Wicks committee is dealing with the machinery to enforce the registration system and the code of conduct. It is considering a different aspect of the problem. However, I take the point that we do not want to examine such matters often because it is a burden on hon. Members, who have to register their interests. If we constantly change the rules, it places a heavy onus on them. I accept the general point of the hon. Member for North Cornwall that we must keep the matter under review, but not too frequently because that would create confusion.
	I always find the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay) stimulating. He often makes me go away and think about things. I want to reassure him that the rules contained several financial limits, and we believed, in the interests of simplification, that we should adopt one cut-off point or threshold. We decided on the figure of 1 per cent. of the parliamentary salary. One could argue that it should be 0.5 per cent. or 2 per cent., but we fixed on 1 per cent. as a relatively simple threshold.
	My hon. Friend mentioned foreign travel. It is registrable if it falls above the threshold. If the foreign sponsorship involved a total payment of £600 in air fares, accommodation and so on, it would have to be registered. I am not sure that the threshold in that instance will mean that large amounts of foreign travel will not be subject to registration. I believe that they will.

Andrew MacKinlay: With respect, I believe that my hon. and learned Friend misses my point. The rules are unfair to hon. Members who go abroad and register that they have travelled at the invitation of a specific Government because they are interested in the country. The answer is for the House to facilitate adequate travel budgets so that hon. Members can travel unencumbered, unembarrassed and uninfluenced by a host Government. That should be the objective.

Ross Cranston: My hon. Friend anticipates my point: I was about to say that he had made me think about the matter. I agree with him, but that is not in the remit of our Committee. It is a good point, because Members of other legislatures get much more sponsored travel than us. There is a good argument for saying that we should receive more. There is already a limited amount, but perhaps it should cover trips to other parts of the world as well as to the EU.
	The hon. Member for Worthing, West (Peter Bottomley) made a point about incorporating the code into the ministerial code. There is a good argument for that, and I suspect that it will not be long before that is done. I agree with that point, but, again, it was not in the remit of the report. We were looking at the substance of the rules, and at how they ought to be changed.
	Finally, I do not think that we have a purely self-regulatory system.

David Winnick: Before my hon. and learned Friend makes his final point, may I ask him a question relating to free gifts? Would he or his colleagues be in favour of the proposal that Members should send a copy of their annual tax return to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards? Is there any reason why we should not do that? The information would not necessarily go into the public domain; it could be held in private by the Commissioner. What is the argument against that?

Ross Cranston: There are big issues of privacy involved, and I would not go along with my hon. Friend on that proposal. The registration rules are quite clear. I shall read out part of rule 9, because it is important.
	"Apart from the specific rules, there is a more general obligation upon Members to keep the overall definition of the Register's purpose in mind when registering their interests."
	In other words, if an hon. Member thinks that a gift whose value falls below the threshold could be seen by outsiders as leading to the perception of a conflict of interest, they ought to register it, under the rules. If they thought that something below the value of £550 fell within the general definition of the register's purpose, the onus would be on them to register it. I should have thought that, in most cases, that would not apply, but my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (David Winnick) might take a different view about the very expensive box of chocolates that he receives and, under rule 9, he would be obliged to register it.
	As I mentioned, I do not think that we have a purely self-regulatory system. As my hon. Friend the Minister made clear, we are subject, in some cases, to the criminal law. We are subject to outside regulators, in that sense. We are also subject to constant public review by the press and, ultimately, we are accountable to the electorate. The most extreme example of that involved the former Member for Tatton, when the electorate said that his behaviour was not acceptable and that they would therefore not elect him—if that is how we interpret that particular result.
	These rules are self-enforcing in the sense that the onus is on all of us to comply with them. If Members adopt a reasonable interpretation of the rules, they should not be subject to criticism. I adopt that view in a fairly legalistic way. If it is quite clear that a particular case does not fall within the rules, I do not think that Members should be subject to criticism on the basis that they should have sought advice and should have registered. I do not think that that is the way to go about it. These are self-enforcing rules, and Members have to read them. Yes, they should seek advice if they are in any doubt, but if they have no doubt, and if their interpretation of the rules is reasonable, they should not be subject to criticism.
	On the whole, then, I commend these proposals to the House. We have tidied up the rules and brought them up to date. We have also dealt with the unworkability of the rule in relation to advocacy, which the hon. Member for Cotswold so amply illustrated in his speech. I commend the proposals to the House.

George Young: By leave of the House, may I say that I am very grateful, on behalf of the Committee, for the kind words that have been said about the report? I should like to reply briefly. I understand that business can go on after 10 o'clock, so if we hit 10 o'clock, I shall not turn into a pumpkin.
	I want to say to the hon. Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay) that a number of his hon. Friends have expressed the view to the Committee that the one group of people that is precluded from initiating a debate about a country overseas is often the group that knows most about it because it has recently visited it. That is the reason behind that change. I thought that I heard the hon. Gentleman utter some disobliging remarks about Tilbury football club, in which case, he is a very brave man. Whatever honorary position he is now obliged to declare in the register as an officer of that club may shortly be removed from him. As for minor interests, I think that he will find that the letter from the commissioner will discourage the registration of trivial matters so that what really needs to be registered is registered.
	The hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler) mentioned timing. Some of the recommendations were made more than a year ago. There is a case for getting on with things when the House or the Select Committee has formed a view, which means that there may never be a right time, but I would be surprised if the Wicks committee took offence at what we are doing tonight.
	I say to the hon. Gentleman, and to the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell), that I think that the Wicks committee is more interested in the overall structure for maintaining standards of conduct in the House than in the details of the code. When I was examined, it was interested in an appeal process, the composition of the committee, the independence of the commissioner and the seniority of those serving on the committee.

Peter Bottomley: One of the changes made by the House a few months ago was the introduction of the rectification procedure, suggested, I think, by the former commissioner. Under that useful procedure, if a Member thinks his or her entry should be changed, that can be done without the need for a report from the commissioner.

George Young: Many of the changes that we are introducing are welcome. It would have been wrong to postpone them, especially that mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown).
	Of course we will keep these matters under review, and of course there will be a dialogue with the Wicks committee. The hon. Member for North Cornwall described the proposals as provisional and transitional. That implies a degree of mortality to which I would not subscribe, but they will be kept under review. It is rather like painting the Forth bridge.
	I understand what the hon. Member for Walsall, North (David Winnick) said about limits. In paragraph 2 of the report, we point out that wherever the line is drawn there will be an argument for drawing it somewhere else. But there is a line in regard to gifts, which concerned him, along with the rules on hospitality and earnings. The £125 rule had not been reviewed for some time, and we felt that 1 per cent. was right.

Tom Levitt: I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will confirm that there used to be a number of de minimis rules in different parts of the code. Is it not much more consistent to apply a 1 per cent. threshold to all the different categories?

George Young: Yes. One of our guidelines was a requirement for consistency and clarity.

Alan Williams: Was not one of the reasons for our switching to a percentage basis the fact that it was self-indexing, and did not need future adjusting?

George Young: There was also the argument that people might not remember the £125 figure, but most know what Members of Parliament are paid and can work out what 1 per cent. of that is.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Worthing, West (Peter Bottomley) said he hoped that our proceedings would be dull. I can only say that they are more dull now that he has left.

Paul Tyler: It may be rather early to ask this question, but can the right hon. Gentleman confirm that, now that he and other Chairmen of Select Committees are apparently to receive additional remuneration, the 1 per cent. will apply to that extra money?

George Young: The 1 per cent. is 1 per cent. of the parliamentary salary. If the hon. Gentleman reads the recommendations of the Modernisation Committee, he will see that my Committee was excluded from the benefit of additional remuneration for its Chairman. That is quite right, and I do not seek such remuneration myself.
	I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Cotswold for making the case so eloquently, and for helping us to make a change to the advocacy rule. That will benefit not just those caught by it but the House, in allowing us to gain from their wisdom.
	I hope that some time will elapse before we have to do this again.
	Question put and agreed to.
	Resolved,
	That—
	(1) this House approves the Ninth Report from the Committee on Standards and Privileges, (House of Commons Paper No. 763), A new Code of Conduct and Guide to the Rules;
	(2) the Resolution of the House of 6th November 1995 relating to Conduct of Members shall be amended, at the end, by adding the words 'or any approach, whether oral or in writing, to Ministers or servants of the Crown';
	(3) the Resolution of the House of 6th November 1995 relating to Employment Agreements shall be redesignated 'Agreements for the Provision of Services;' and shall be amended, as follows:
	(a) by leaving out the words 'up to £1,000, £1,000–£5,000, £5,000–£10,000' in each of paragraphs (1), (2) and (3) and inserting the words 'up to £5,000, £5,001–£10,000';
	(b) after the word 'inspection' in each of paragraphs (1), (2) and (3), by inserting the words 'and reproduction';
	(c) at the end, by adding the words—
	'Provided that the requirement to deposit a copy of an agreement with the Commissioner shall not apply—
	(a) if the fees or benefits payable do not exceed one per cent. of the current parliamentary salary; nor
	(b) in the case of media work (but in that case the Member shall deposit a statement of the fees or benefits payable in the bands specified above)';
	(4) the Code of Conduct and the Guide to the Rules relating to the Conduct of Members (House of Commons Paper No. 688 (1995–96)) shall be amended as proposed in Annex 2 to the Report; and
	(5) the registration forms submitted for the next published Register of Members' interests shall comply with the new rules on the registration of Members' interests; and any requirement under the new rules to register an interest which is not registrable now shall come into force on the publication of the next Register.

ALCOHOL ABUSE (YOUNG PEOPLE)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Dan Norris.]

Jim Sheridan: I am delighted to have the opportunity to raise the issue of binge drinking and its effect on youngsters, and to share with other hon. Members my experiences and concerns.
	Binge drinking is a problem with proven links to many of the more serious aspects of antisocial behaviour in our communities. The debate is important because it will consider many issues associated with binge drinking, such as teenage drinking. As we know, our teenagers are tomorrow's policy makers. A recent report on behalf of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, by Communities That Care, covered some 14,000 secondary schools throughout England, Scotland and Wales. It stated that the widespread misuse of alcohol among under-age drinkers
	"cannot safely be ignored by parents or policy makers."
	Alcohol Concern stated that the report
	"is the latest in a series of studies indicating that young people are drinking worrying amounts of alcohol".
	It adds that drinking among teenagers is linked to antisocial behaviour and the use of other drugs.
	The following figures from a survey show the scale of binge drinking among British teenagers. Up to 25 per cent. of 13 and 14-year-olds claim to have downed at least five alcoholic drinks in a single session. That figure rises to 50 per cent. of all 15 and 16-year-olds. Some 27 per cent. of 15 and 16-year-olds reported going on three or more binges in the past month. The survey also found that 9 per cent. of boys and 5 per cent. of 11 and 12-year-old girls describe themselves as regular drinkers. Those figures rise to 39 per cent. of boys and 33 per cent. of girls aged 15 to 16. The majority of children surveyed stated that their parents would think it wrong for them to steal or to use illegal drugs, but the proportion who said that their parents would object to under-age drinking declined significantly.

John Lyons: I should point out to my hon. Friend that most research shows that young people do not regard themselves at as risk from alcohol. According to various surveys in Scotland and the rest of the UK, education for children about alcohol is almost non-existent in some schools. Perhaps some attention can be given to that in this debate.

Jim Sheridan: My hon. Friend makes a good point, and I shall deal with education later.
	The national picture gives cause for concern, given the association of binge drinking with criminal activities committed by teenage drinkers. Some 10 per cent. of schoolchildren admitted that they had committed burglary, and 25 per cent. of 15 to 16-year-olds admitted to carrying offensive weapons. The report's findings simply replicated the conclusion of earlier reports that British teenagers are more likely to get drunk than their European contemporaries. Some researchers would claim that that is attributable to a more relaxed attitude to alcohol use in Britain.
	In a recent case in Stirling, three boys aged between 10 and 12 were admitted to Stirling royal infirmary, suffering from the effects of alcohol. The two boys aged 12 were described as suffering from drowsiness and vomiting. The condition of the 10-year-old boy gave greater cause for concern. His body temperature had to be raised, as it was dangerously low. Coupled with severe vomiting, his condition could have led to cardiac arrest. Police in Stirling are still trying to discover who supplied the boys with alcohol—and therein lies another problem.
	Consumer advocates and anti-alcohol groups have recently called for regulations to place stricter controls on the marketing to teenagers of fruit-flavoured alcoholic drinks. Such drinks are known as alcopops and are designed to appeal to the younger drinker. The groups say that the new hard lemonades and other fruit-flavoured malt beverages are primarily targeted at teenage consumers. Alcopop drinks are clearly child-oriented products that are designed to get children to consume alcohol at an early age. The complaint called for an investigation into whether labelling and marketing of fruit-flavoured alcoholic beverages could be construed as unfair marketing practice under law. In response to the complaints, drinks manufacturers and distributors stated:
	"It's ridiculous to suggest that the flavour of a drink is what stands between a teen abiding by the law or illegally breaking the law."
	The chief executive of the charity Communities That Care recently called for urgent Government action to spearhead a joined-up approach by all agencies to provide support for young people, addressing drinking and other problematic factors that contribute to their lifestyle. A recent World Health Organisation report stated that one in eight deaths among young men in the UK are caused by alcohol abuse. While children in most European countries are given wine with their meals by their parents in an effort to encourage responsible alcohol consumption, most British children cannot wait to reach the legal age to drink in order to emulate the drinking habits of their parents. The report states:
	"While we are developing a growing appreciation of wine and food, we are still a nation that does most of its glass raising just before closing time."
	Older British drinkers have developed a last drink syndrome, in which they have a ritual that when last orders are called at the bar, they order two drinks or more just to squeeze in a final one for the road. That means that they are attempting to swallow two pints in the time that they would normally only drink half a pint. That quick intake means that they get drunk and stagger out into the night to get involved in brawls and fights in late-night carry-out shops and taxi ranks, leading to more public disorder.
	The British Entertainment and Discotheque Association, a representative body for late-night venues with more than 1,000 members across the UK, has been heavily involved in the debate on binge drinking and the impact that alcohol discounting has on the late-night environment in our communities. It is calling for a solution to the problem that still gives operators some freedom to offer promotions while removing the ability to offer the deep discounts and irresponsible promotions that cause so much trouble in our communities.
	The British drinker does not know how to drink sensibly. As my hon. Friend the Member for Strathkelvin and Bearsden (Mr. Lyons) said, we need a programme to educate and inform the British public about sensible drinking and the horrific problems associated with binge drinking. To that end, I welcome the current initiative from the Scottish Executive to attempt to provide such a programme for the people of Scotland. I ask that the Government give serious and urgent consideration to a similar programme throughout the UK.

Kim Howells: I want to thank my hon. Friend the Member for West Renfrewshire (Jim Sheridan) for raising those important issues. As he pointed out, all hon. Members are rightly concerned about the welfare of children, and alcohol abuse by the young is a vitally important issue for every parent. He has spoken eloquently about matters that are causing a great deal of anxiety in all our constituencies.
	The protection of our children is one of the key purposes of licensing law and is a primary aim of licensing reform and the modernisation for which I am now responsible as a Minister. I am pleased to have the opportunity to reply to this debate, because we have a very good story to tell of positive steps taken since 1997 to tackle directly the problems associated with under-age drinking.
	The issues affect many Departments, as my hon. Friend suggested. They need joined-up government and joined-up thinking. The Home Office is actively addressing alcohol-related crime and drunkenness on the streets involving the young. The Department of Health is concerned about sensible drinking by all of us, but especially by the young. It is developing a national alcohol strategy that will embrace many of the issues that I will mention this evening. The Department for Education and Skills includes alcohol education in the national curriculum as part of general teaching about substance misuse, which is another point that my hon. Friend made. The Department of Trade and Industry regulates the advertising, marketing and packaging of alcoholic beverages, which can be made overly attractive to the young. Customs and Excise is actively seeking to prevent smuggled alcohol being sold on the cheap to kids and adults. In the terrible example that my hon. Friend gave, the alcohol may have come from such a source, because streets in some areas are awash with it. The Treasury has changed the duty rates on mixed drinks made of spirits mixed with soft fruit drinks so that they are now taxed as spirits rather than wine. This will make them more expensive and less accessible to the very young.
	We in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport are responsible for the licensing laws and the age at which alcohol may be purchased in England and Wales. Moreover, the Scottish Executive and the Northern Ireland Office have a similar role in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
	Hon. Members will recall that the Government came to power in 1997 promising to tackle the problem of alcopops. It was an issue of great concern to many parents, and a very worrying trend. Working closely with the Portman Group, we called upon producers and suppliers of alcohol to discharge their social responsibilities with regard to the problem of under-age drinking. A range of additional controls within the Portman Group's code of practice were introduced and had a significant impact on the merchandising and packaging of alcoholic drinks.
	The number of complaints made to the Portman Group's independent panel about the marketing of alcohol to children and its packaging has now dwindled to almost nothing. That is an achievement of which the Portman Group and the Government should be proud.
	In 1999, we gave our wholehearted support to the private Member's Bill presented by hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Mr. Truswell), following the tragic death of his 14-year-old constituent, David Knowles. The Licensing (Young Persons) Act 2000 closed a loophole in the main licensing statutes that had allowed some staff in licensed premises to sell alcohol to children without fear of prosecution or conviction. The Act also introduced for the first time a new offence that prevents adults hanging around off-licences from buying alcohol on behalf of minors. We know that there are clear links between that and the sale of other drugs.
	In April 2000, the Government included a raft of measures to tackle under-age purchase and consumption of alcohol in the White Paper entitled "Time for Reform." My hon. Friend the Member for West Renfrewshire has urged us to implement these reforms at the first opportunity. Although I know that many in the House would have liked us to move more swiftly on reform generally, we certainly cannot be criticised for any delay on the measures regarding children.
	The White Paper proposals will tackle under-age drinking. They were given priority ahead of general reform and were included in the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001. Three crucial measures have been brought into force since last year's general election.
	On 1 December last year, the test purchasing of alcohol was put on a statutory footing for the first time in England and Wales, bringing it into line with the arrangements for tobacco. Trading standards officers can now send minors into licensed premises to attempt to buy alcohol. This is a valuable deterrent that has heightened the risk of detection and prosecution for those unscrupulous traders making profit out of causing harm to our children.
	The Act also placed a new positive duty on licensees and their staff in England and Wales not to sell alcohol to children. The defences that can be mounted against prosecutions have been amended, and it has been made easier for enforcement agencies to secure convictions. Retailers now know that in the case of any doubt about age they simply should not make the sale.
	The Act has also made it easier for local authorities to designate areas in their towns and cities where alcohol may not be consumed publicly, and it has expanded the powers of the police to confiscate alcohol carried by children in those areas.
	As I made clear at the outset, licensing law can only be one element of a much wider strategy. Data from research sponsored by the Portman Group strongly suggest that children are obtaining a great deal of cheap alcohol from unlicensed individuals peddling smuggled alcohol. This is a cynical trade, with little regard for the consequences for the young and, indeed, for parents. The Government have stepped up their campaign to defeat the bootleggers, with the Treasury providing more customs officers dedicated to detecting those involved.
	Our wider strategy includes the work of the Departments for Education and Skills and of Health and the Portman Group in providing more health education resources for children and parents to learn about sensible drinking. I was shocked to hear my hon. Friend say that some schools in Scotland provide no education about alcohol, and I hope that those schools will realise that that is vital work. A great deal of research shows that most of the alcohol obtained and consumed by minors is provided by their parents, and public education to change some of our entrenched attitudes is essential.
	A great deal has been and is being done in the public and private sectors relating to licensing, health and education. However, I emphasise that there are no easy or quick fixes when it comes to under-age drinking. Education, as my hon. Friend suggested, lies at the heart of much of the problem. By the time children are in their teenage years, bad habits will often have been formed. We need to reach them earlier, as we have done with some success—although it is by no means complete success—on tobacco. I acknowledge that there is a great deal more that we can do regarding the general reform of licensing. Our laws are archaic and incomprehensible to many parents.
	My hon. Friend talked about binge drinking. When, over the 2001–02 new year period, I managed to get the Regulatory Reform (Special Occasions Licensing) Order 2001 through the House to extend drinking hours to 36 hours, the police informed us that it was the quietest new year's eve they could remember, with the least amount of violence. My hon. Friend is right to point out that although binge drinking may not result in fights inside pubs or even outside those pubs, it certainly results in violence in the fast-food outlets where people steam in when they are thrown out of the pub, usually at the same time and in their hundreds.
	Minors cannot purchase alcohol in pubs and nightclubs, but children as young as five can lawfully consume alcohol in pub gardens and some family rooms. Consumption is prohibited only in the area of licensed premises known as "the bar". This also means that children aged over four can, in theory, drink alcohol freely in a licensed restaurant that has no bar. We must not be fooled by the counter from which drinks are supplied in a restaurant—that is often not a bar as understood in the law. These are archaic and complex areas of the law, and it is no wonder that most parents find it all utterly confusing. We intend to sort all this out through the general reform of licensing law, and a Bill will be introduced as soon as parliamentary time permits.
	Once again, I thank my hon Friend for raising these important matters for debate and for giving us the opportunity to set out our approach to them. If we do not sort these matters out, I fear for the future of many of our young people and also for the future of communities like the ones in which I and many colleagues here tonight grew up. This problem undermines the social cohesion that has made those communities such remarkable and good places in which to raise children. This is a very serious issue and I hope that I have shown my hon. Friend that the Government are taking it very seriously.
	Question put and agreed to.
	Adjourned accordingly at twenty-four minutes past Ten o'clock.